UBRARY 

UNtViR^TY  OF 

sanoicgo 


^  'tUy^X.\XAJL.  (L    "t  \) 


^M^v.  i^'oL 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/cambridgeofeightOOgilmiala 


Washington  Elm. 


THE    CAMBRIDGE    OF    EIGHTEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  NINETY-SIX 

A  PICTUKE  OF 

THE  CITY  AND  ITS  INDUSTEIES 

FIFTY  YEARS  AFTEE  ITS 

INCORPORATION 


DONE  BT  DIVERS  HANDS 

AND   EDITED  BT 

ARTHUR  OILMAN,  A.M. 

EOITOB  OV   "THB  CAHBRIDQE  OV  1776" 


UNDER  THE  DIEECTION  OF  A  COMMITTEE  OF  THE  CITY 
GOVERNMENT  AND  CITIZENS 


There  may  be  fairer  spots  of  earth. 
But  all  their  glories  are  not  worth 
The  virtue  of  the  native  sod. 

Jakes  Rcssbll  Lowell. 


CAMBRIDGE 

^printeD  at  tlie  HitjersiDe  l^vt&& 

1896 


At  a  meeting  of  the  Citizens'  Tkadb  Association,  held  December 
20,  1895,  the  President,  H.  O.  Houghton,  in  the  chair,  on  motion  of 
George  Howland  Cox,  it  was 

Voted :  That  a  committee,  consisting  of  the  president  of  this  Asso- 
ciation and  four  of  its  members  (to  be  appointed  by  the  chair),  be 
requested  to  confer  with  the  citizens'  committee  upon  the  expediency 
of  collecting  statistics  in  relation  to  the  City  of  Cambridge,  showing 
its  advantages  as  a  place  of  residence  and  for  the  establishment  of 
business,  and  any  and  all  knowledge,  the  promulgation  of  which  would 
prove  beneficial  to  the  growth  and  general  welfare  of  the  city ;  the 
same  to  be  published  in  an  illustrated  form  and  distributed  through- 
out the  country  as  the  wisdom  of  the  committee  may  determine. 


COMMITTEE  ON  THE  MEMORIAL  VOLUME. 

George  Rowland  Cox,  Chairman. 
Councilman  Albert  S.  Apsey,  Clerk. 

Alderman  RussELii  Bradford.  Rev.  John  O'Brien. 

Councilman  Davtd  W.  Butterfield.      John  Hopewell,  Jr. 
Justin  Winsor.  Chester  W.  Kingsley. 


Copyright,  1896, 
By  GEORGE  HOWLAND  COX. 


PREFACE. 


The  pages  now  in  the  hands  of  the  reader  are  the  fruit  of 
those  sentiments  of  municipal  pride  which  demand  some  per- 
manent record  of  the  good  traits  of  a  city  loved.  Patriotism 
is  strongly  developed  in  America,  but  the  spirit  of  devotion  to 
the  city  of  one's  birth  or  choice  is  in  need  of  stimulation.  It 
is  possible  for  a  child  to  grow  up  a  patriot  without  a  real 
appreciation  of  those  duties  that  arise  from  his  living  among 
throngs  of  people.  The  independence  of  country  life  is  con- 
sistent with  a  selfishness  that  is  quite  out  of  place  in  a  city. 
In  the  crowded  town,  every  man,  woman,  and  child  must  con- 
sider his  neighbors.  Not  one  of  them  can  have  his  own  water- 
supply,  for  example,  and  manage  it  independently.  The 
drainage  of  his  estate  must  be  controlled  by  the  convenience  of 
those  about  him.  He  may  not  locate  his  dwelling,  even,  without 
consideration  of  the  dwellings  of  others,  and  of  his  relations  to 
his  neighbors.  In  the  days  of  our  forefathers  in  America,  men 
lived  in  the  country,  and  the  cities  were  small.  Now  the  resi- 
dents of  cities  constitute  the  greater  portion  of  the  inhabitants 
of  our  State  and  Nation. 

Such  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  it  is  necessary  in  these 
days  to  lay  deep  the  foundations  of  love  of  city,  as  distin- 
guished from  that  love  of  country  which  has  dominated  all  true 
Americans  since  the  moment  that  Winthrop  first  set  foot  on 
the  shores  of  Newe  Towne,  or  that  other  notable  day  when 
Washington  drew  his  sword  under  the  ancient  Tree  on  the 
Common.  Our  city  fortunately  has  a  history  which  can  be 
dwelt  upon  with  satisfaction.  The  Cambridge  of  eighteen 
hundred  and  ninety-six  is  quite  as  well  worth  our  thought  and 
admiration  as  the  infant  Cambridge  that  boasted  a  Winthrop 
and  a  Shepard. 

The  present  publication  has  another  reason  than  these  for  its 


iv  PREFACE. 

being.  The  civic  pride  which  leads  us  to  linger  over  the  story 
of  the  lives  of  our  worthy  ancestors  inclines  us  no  less  strongly 
to  place  on  record,  for  the  benefit  of  our  descendants,  a  picture 
of  the  city  that  we  know.  What  is  the  Cambridge  of  1896 
doing,  and  what  message  has  it  for  posterity  ?  Prophecy  has  a 
powerful  influence  in  bringing  its  own  fulfillment  to  pass;  and 
depicting  the  good  traits  of  a  man  or  of  a  city  may  have  a 
similar  tendency  in  emphasizing  the  best,  and  in  making  it 
permanent.  If  the  Cambridge  of  our  day  is  worthy  because  it 
is  the  centre  of  important  manufactures ;  if  it  holds  up  to  the 
world  any  principles  of  education,  or  if  it  is  stamped  by  the 
mark  of  a  method  of  civic  management  that  may  be  called 
"  The  Cambridge  Idea,"  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  put  down  on  paper  and  preserve  for  our  children  an 
account  of  it  all. 

The  chapters  of  this  book  may  be  considered  monographs. 
Various  loving  hands  have  described  those  features  which  they 
in  their  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  different  matters  have 
thought  best.  They  have  left  to  the  Editor  the  agreeable  task 
of  making  for  them  the  bow  that  good  manners  demand.  The 
Editor  wishes  to  disclaim  the  honor  of  planning  the  book,  and 
the  much  more  serious  labor  of  selecting  the  writers  and  gather- 
ing the  papers.  Those  duties  have  fallen  to  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee.  With  what  success  they  have  been  performed, 
the  reader  will  judge.  It  is  not  for  a  Cambridge  man  to  say 
that  it  is  seldom  possible  to  convene  such  an  assemblage  of 
writers  from  the  citizenship  of  a  single  city. 

The  interest  in  this  voliune  has  not  by  any  means  been  con- 
fined to  Cambridge.  When  "  The  Cambridge  of  1776 "  was 
prepared  by  the  present  Editor,  Mr.  Howells,  at  that  time 
editor  of  "  The  Atlantic,"  made  a  graceful  contribution,  and 
when  he  was  offered  the  opportunity  to  repeat  his  good  deed,  he 
expressed  himself  as  filled  with  such  admiration  of  the  place  of 
his  former  abode  that  he  would  like  to  write  the  whole  book 
himself !     Here  are  his  words :  — 

"  If  I  had  only  had  the  time,  I  should  have  liked  to  write  the  whole 
book  myself.  For  one  who  was  not  born  in  Cambridge  I  believe  that 
I  am  a  most  impassioned  and  inexpatriable  (allow  me  !)  citizen  of  the 
place.     It  is  nearly  twenty  years  since  I  lived  there,  but  I  have  never 


PREFACE.  V 

■wholly  been  away  from  it,  and  in  my  reveries  by  day,  and  my  dreams 
by  night,  I  am  still  a  dweller  there.  Lowell  still  comes  to  the  door 
of  my  little  carpenter's  box  on  Sacramento  Street,  and  asks  me  to 
walk  -with  him  over  the  vacant  fields  which  you  fancy  are  covered  with 
houses.  In  my  errands  to  the  University  Press,  I  meet  Agassiz  going 
and  coming  near  the  Museum ;  I  come  out  in  the  Garden  Street  car 
with  Richard  Henry  Dana  ;  sometimes  the  weird  presence  of  Forceythe 
Willson  encounters  me  on  Mount  Auburn  Street.  I  often  find  Long- 
fellow in  his  library  at  Craigie  House,  where  he  was  always  so  patient 
of  intrusion,  and  the  whole  circle  of  the  simple  great  men  of  the  past 
suffers  my  youthful  inadequacy  at  his  round  table. 

"I  know  that  there  is  a  superstition  that  these  men  are  dead,  but  I 
cannot  think  of  any  who  are  so  much  alive.  I  rather  feel  that  I  am 
the  ghost  when  I  am  in  their  company,  and  there  is  an  actual  Cam- 
bridge which  is  not  half  so  real  as  the  Cambridge  I  used  to  know,  and 
hope  to  know  again  when  I  go  back  to  the  house  that  I  built.  That 
Cambridge  is  one  of  the  famous  towns  of  all  times,  and  can  no  more 
pass  away  than  Athens  or  Florence.  I  hope  your  book  will  help  to 
repopulate  it.  We  who  have  never  ceased  to  live  there  are  always 
glad  of  newcomers,  if  they  are  people  of  taste  and  cultivation,  as  your 
readers  must  be." 

The  good-will  did  not  end,  however,  with  this  distinguished 
author.  Among  others,  Mr.  George  Coffin  Little,  son  of  Mr. 
Charles  C.  Little,  who  was  one  of  the  selectmen  under  the 
town  government,  elsewhere  mentioned  in  the  book,  showed  his 
interest.  He  sent  from  France,  where  he  has  long  lived,  many 
interesting  reminiscences,  which  arrived,  unfortunately,  too  late 
for  use,  though  they  will  doubtless  see  light  in  another  place. 
Mr.  Little  was  bom  in  the  "  new  home  "  that  his  father  had 
just  built  on  the  corner  of  Holyoke  and  Winthrop  streets, 
where  he  had  as  neighbors,  "  Mr.  Folsom,  the  college  printer, 
afterwards  the  well-known  librarian  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum ; 
Dr.  Harris,  the  college  librarian  ;  Mr.  Dana,  the  cashier  of  the 
Charles  River  Bank  ;  and  last,  but  not  least,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Albro, 
the  friend  of  all,  universally  beloved."  It  would  be  pleasant 
to  follow  Mr.  Little  through  his  recollections  of  the  early  Com- 
mencements of  Harvard  College,  when  the  Square  took  on  the 
appearance  of  a  country  fair ;  of  "  Miss  Jennison's  school,"  on 
Garden  Street,  under  the  shade  of  the  Washington  Elm,  which 
he  attended ;  of  the  other  school  on  Garden  Street,  neat  Christ 


VI  PREFACE. 

Church,  kept  by  "  Mr.  G. ; "  of  Mr.  Wells's  school,  with  the 
discipline  that  he  thought  in  his  earlier  clays  "  severe ; "  of 
still  another  school  on  Dana  Hill,  kept  by  Mr.  E.  B.  Whitman, 
"  who  never  could  be  induced  to  write  with  a  steel  pen,"  nor 
keep  school  without  "  a  rod  or  ruler,"  for  discipline's  sake  ;  of 
Colonel  Brackett,  the  butcher,  and  the  eccentric  but  favorite 
George  Francis  Train ;  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  "  in  his 
youthful  beauty ; "  of  the  brothers  Bird,  above  Elmwood,  and 
their  singing-school.  All  of  this  we  must  pass  on  to  the  editor 
of  "  The  Cambridge  of  1946,"  with  our  compliments. 

There  is  one  other  friend  of  Cambridge  who  can  never  be 
forgotten  when  its  attractions  are  celebrated.  Mr.  John  Holmes, 
mentioned  several  times  in  the  present  volume,  still  lives  among 
us  ;  and  he,  too,  has  been  mov^d  to  make  a  contribution  to  the 
book.  The  following  lines,  sent  to  the  Editor  without  title,  will 
serve  as  a  prologue.  The  Editor  has  ventured  to  give  them  a 
heading  in  keeping  with  the  ancient  style  that  Mr.  Holmes  has 
adopted :  — 

A  BALLADE   OF  OLD  CAMBRIDGE 

Showing  how  the  Stranger  found  his  Way  about  the  renowned 
Village,  and  how  an  empty  Sentry-Box  affrighted  a  little 
Maiden. 

BY  J.    H. 

The  old  time  Cambridge  had  no  book 

Of  color  blue  and  gold, 
Which  to  a  searcher  in  the  town 

His  right  direction  told. 

No  names  or  numbers  then  of  streets 

Were  to  the  people  known  ; 
Each  to  the  questioner  showed  the  way, 

By  methods  of  his  own. 

"  Far  as  Miss  Jarvis*  go,"  says  one, 
"  Then  to  your  left  hand  look, 
And  there  a  yellow  house  you  '11  see, 
And  there  lives  Mr.  Cook." 

A  stranger  to  a  native  says, 

"  I  pray  you  tell  to  me, 
If  it  so  be  that  you  should  know, 

Where  Palmer's  store  may  be." 


PREFACE.  vii 

"  You  straight  along  by  Maclntire's, 
Far  as  the  hay-scales  go, 
And  then  a  building  white  you  see 
For  Palmer's  store  you  'II  know." 

"  But  where  is  Maclntire's  ?  "  he  says. 

"  The  Court-house  next  below." 
*'  But  where  the  Court-house  is  ?  "  he  says, 

"  For  that  I  do  not  know." 

"  The  Court-house  —  you  don't  know  —  but  stay, 
I  '11  tell  you  what  to  do. 
Just  ask  in  Farwell's  shop  the  way, 
And  they  '11  show  it  to  you." 

*'  What !  Farwell's  you  don't  know. 
And  good  Miss  Catharine  Stone? 
Well,  then,  I  '11  tell  you,  you  ought  not 
To  go  about  alone. 

"  You  're  the  first  man  I  ever  saw, 
That  Farwell's  did  n't  know, 
And  everybody  else,  I  'm  sure, 
Would  also  tell  you  so." 


Now,  reader,  for  a  little  walk, 
Perhaps  with  me  you  '11  go. 

And  ancient  landmarks  by  the  way 
Our  progress  on  shall  show. 

Now  Concord  turnpike,  we  all  know, 
Doth  o'er  the  Common  stretch  ; 

We  walk  on  that  till  us  it  doth 
To  an  old  elm-tree  fetch. 

This  elm  now  old  and  shattered  stands, 

As  we  may  plainly  see. 
Upon  the  road  which  upward  leads 

Unto  Menotomy. 

Now  down  along  this  road  we  go, 

Unto  the  burying  ground, 
Which  by  a  mossy  old  board  fence 

Is  circled  all  around. 


viii  PREFACE. 

Next  Reemie's  barber  shop  we  pass, 
Close  to  the  burial  ground, 

And  from  it  issues  to  the  ear 
A  squawking  parrot  sound. 

Next  pass  we  Captain  Stimson's  house, 
A  stout  and  loyal  man. 

And  thence  it  was  that  in  our  time 
The  college  wood-cart  ran. 

Next  comes  the  den,  —  a  lonely  house, 
Of  superstitious  name, 

Although  to  it  no  proper  ghost 
Is  credited  by  fame. 

Now  down  in  town  we  fairly  come, 
And  here  the  Law  School  stands. 

Where  busy  students  use  their  beads. 
As  other  men  their  hands. 

In  summer  time  the  students  few 
Would  sit  upon  the  fence, 

And  this,  perhaps,  was  studying  law, 
But  not  in  legal  sense. 

The  court-house  and  the  market-house 
We  leave  on  either  hand, 

And  safe  arrived  we  comfortably 
At  Farwell's  corner  stand. 

Suppose  that  now  we  Brightonward 

A  little  onward  go. 
That  I  to  you  a  place  or  two 

For  you  to  note  may  show. 

And  here  we  come  to  Warland's  shop, 
'T  was  here  in  seventy-five 

That  little  Joe,  the  'prentice  boy. 
From  war  escaped  alive. 

From  upper  window  little  Joe 
With  curious  peeping  eye 

Lord  Percy  and  his  thousand  saw 
With  drum  and  fife  march  by. 

Then  he  unto  himself  did  say. 
And  fearfully  did  quake, 


PREFACE.  IX 

"  These  soldiers  come  with  fife  and  dram 
My  precious  life  to  take." 

Then  down  the  cellar  quick  he  dived 

And  all  concealed  lay, 
And  thus  to  tell  me  he  survived. 

What  I  tell  you  to-day. 

Now  Porter's  on  the  right  we  pass, 

That  old  established  inn 
Where  solid  comfort  very  much. 

And  liquid  too,  hath  been. 

And  in  his  office,  on  the  left, 

There  sits  our  man  of  law, 
In  any  kind  of  document 

Prepared  to  find  a  flaw. 

And  next  to  him  old  Jacob  Smith 

Hangs  out  a  Golden  Shoe, 
Which  truly  't  was  a  costly  thing 

For  Jacob  Smith  to  do. 

And  now  we  at  the  corner  stand 

Of  the  Old  Market-place  ; 
The  Boston  road  doth  lie  behind 

And  Watertown  we  face. 

At  the  next  corner  stood  a  house 

Which  we  remember  well, 
And  in  it  dwelt  the  little  maid 

Of  whom  I  am  to  tell. 

Here  lived  a  doctor,  at  the  time 

When  rose  contention  hot 
'Twixt  those  who  liked  things  as  they  were 

And  those  who  liked  them  not. 

The  doctor  A^as  a  Tory  called. 

And  when  the  war  began 
He  was,  with  soldiers  in  his  house, 

A  sore  affiicted  man. 

At  every  place  about  the  house 

A  sentinel  was  set, 
A  fearful  man  to  look  upon 

With  gun  and:  bagonett. 


PREFACE. 

And  even  at  the  very  well 

Whoe'er  would  water  draw 
The  countersign  must  duly  give, 

Or  bide  by  martial  law. 

The  doctor  had  a  little  girl, 

A  maid  of  seven  or  eight, 
On  whom  these  dreadful  soldier  men 

Had  made  impression  great. 

To  the  stem  sentry  she  scarce  dared 

To  raise  a  fearful  eye, 
And  always  as  she  passed  she  made 

A  reverent  curtesy. 

The  war  passed  on,  —  the  troops  had  gone 

Unto  another  place, 
And  now  our  little  maiden  skipped 

And  ran  her  natural  pace. 

Now  so  it  was  our  little  maid 

Was  on  an  errand  sent 
A  little  way  down  Charlestown  road. 

And  trippingly  she  went. 

But  presently,  at  her  right  hand, 

She  saw  by  twilight  dim 
A  dreaded  sentry-box  to  stand, 

All  soldier-like  and  grim. 

Hard  beat  our  little  maiden's  heart. 

And  suddenly  she  stopped, 
And  to  the  empty  sentry-box 

A  little  curtesy  dropped. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   CELEBRATION. 

The  movement  for  a  proper  celebration  of  the  completion  of 
fifty  years  of  the  corporate  life  of  Cambridge  originated  in  the 
Citizens'  Trade  Association.  The  following  extract  is  made 
from  the  record  of  the  meeting  of  the  Association  held  on  June 
19,  1895. 

"The  committee  on  public  affairs  reported  the  following  resolutions, 
which  were  adopted. 

"  Whereas,  the  City  of  Cambridge,  settled  in  1630  and  incorporated  in 
1846,  will,  in  the  next  few  months,  round  out  the  first  fifty  years  of  its 
corporate  existence, 

"  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  sentiment  of  this  Association  that  there  should 
be  a  public  observance  of  the  semi-centennial  anniversary  of  the  incorpora- 
tion of  the  City  of  Cambridge,  dui-ing  the  month  of  March,  1896  ;  and  be 
it  further 

"  Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  five  members  of  this  Association,  includ- 
ing the  president,  be  appointed  by  the  president  of  the  Association  for  the 
purpose  of  calling  a  public  meeting,  at  which  a  general  citizens'  committee 
may  be  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  arrangements  for  the  anniversary 
celebration  ;  and  be  it  further 

"  Resolved,  That  the  city  council  be  requested  to  appoint  a  committee  to 
cooperate  with  the  citizens'  committee,  that  the  celebration  may  be  wide  in 
its  scope  and  representative  in  its  character." 

The  president  appointed  Messrs.  J.  J.  Kelley,  George  H. 
Cox,  Dr.  Charles  Bullock,  and  John  Hopewell,  Jr.,  as  the  other 
members  of  the  committee. 

A  public  meeting  was  called,  a  citizens'  committee  appointed, 
and  a  communication  sent  to  the  city  council. 

From  the  records  of  the  city  council. 

Ordered,  That  a  joint  special  committee  be  appointed  to  cooperate  with  a 
committee  of  citizens  appointed  at  a  public  meeting,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  arrangements  for  a  suitable  public  observance  of  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  incorporation  of  the  City  of  Cambridge,  during  the  month  of 
March,  1896. 


xii  THE  GENESIS   OF  THE  CELEBRATION. 

Said  committee  to  consist  of  one  alderman  and  two  members  of  the  com- 
mon council  from  each  ward,  including  the  president  of  each  board  ;  also, 
that  His  Honor  the  Mayor  be  requested  to  act  with  the  committee. 

Adopted,  and  Aldermen  Keith,  Wood,  Bradford,  and  Rourke,  and  the 
president  appointed  on  the  part  of  this  board. 

Sent  down  for  concurrence. 
Concurred,  October  15,  1895. 

Councilmen  Reid,  Beedle,  Davis,  Odiorne,  Ahem,  Willard,  Allen, 
Whitmore,  Parry,  and  Apsey  appointed. 

October  16,  1895.    Approved. 

To  the  Joint  Special  Committee  on  Anniversary  Celebration. 

Communication  from  the  Mayor  transmitting  one  from  the  president  of 
the  citizens'  committee  on  the  proposed  anniversary  celebration. 

Sent  down  for  concurrence. 

Concurred,  October  29,  1895. 

Ordered,  By  authority  of  Chapter  166  of  the  Legislative  Acts  of  the 
year  1892,  that  the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  be  and  hereby  is 
appropriated  for  the  purpose  of  the  proper  observance  of  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  incorporation  of  the  city.  The  sum  so  appropriated  to  be 
included  in  the  annual  estimate  for  incidental  expenses  for  the  current  year, 
when  the  same  shall  be  made. 

Adopted  by  a  yea  and  nay  vote  as  follows  :  — 

Yea,  Aldermen  Bleiler,  Bradford,  Conant,  Cutter,  Keith,  Stearns,  White, 
Wood,  and  Mr.  President. 

Nay,  none.     Aldermen  Douglass  and  Rourke  absent. 

Sent  down  for  concurrence. 

Concurred,  January  6,  1896.  January  7,  1896.     Approved. 


CONTENTS. 


PAoa 

The  Beginnings  of  Cambridge.  By  John  Fiske,  Litt.  D.,  LL.  D  .  .  .  1 
Why  the  site  of  Cambridge  was  chosen,  1.  —  What  the  Rev.  John  Norton 
thought  Virgil  might  have  done,  2.  —  The  limits  of  the  Common,  3.  — 
The  English  method  followed,  4.  —  The  "  pallysadoe,"  5.  —  Hooker's 
removal,  6.  —  Mr.  Wilson  climbs  a  tree  in  1637,  7.  —  Harvard  College 
foonded,  8.  —  Watertown,  Arlington,  and  Brighton,  9.  —  Heresy  feared, 
10.  —  The  Regicides  in  Cambridge,  11.  —  Mr.  Henry  Dunster's  heresy, 
12.  —  Whitefield  preaches  on  the  Common,  13. 

Cambkidge  Town,  1750-1846.     By  Andrew  McFarland  Davis 14 

Limits  of  the  town,  14.  —  The  Common  the  centre,  16.  —  Distribution 
of  the  population,  17.  —  Burning  of  Harvard  Hall  in  1764,  18.  —  The 
Stamp  Act,  19.  —  Boston  Massacre,  20.  —  A  full  town  meeting  acts  on  the 
Tea  Tax,  21.  —  A  crowd  at  the  court-house  in  1774,23.  —  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Oliver  intimidated,  24.  —  The  first  "  Patriot's  Day,"  26.  —  A 
declaration  of  independence,  27.  —  Burgoyne's  troops  in  Cambridge,  28. 
—  New  bridges  to  Boston,  29.  —  Inclosing  the  Common,  31.  —  Growth 
of  the  town,  32.  —  Manufactures  begin,  33.  —  Ecclesiastical  history,  34. 

Life  in  Cambridge  Town.    By  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson     ....    35 
Lowell  and  John  Holmes  describe  the  olden  time,  3.5 ;  An  "  Exhibition" 
in   1840,   37.  — Morse's   "hourly,"   38.  — The   College  in   1846,   38.— 
Decrease  of  the  drinking  habit,  39. 

The  GambkeIt-Roofed  House.    By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 43 

The  Red  Republic  of  Letters,  43.  —  Mysteries  of  the  cellar  and  garret, 
45.  —  The  ''  Library  Hospital,"  45.  —  General  Ward's  headquarters,  46. 

Cambridge  Common.     By  Ex-Mayor  Charles  H.  Saunders 47 

Elections  under  the  oak-tree,  47.  —  Vane  objects  to  Winthrop,  48. — 
Whitefield  preaches  on  the  Common,  48.  —  President  Langdon's  prayer 
before  Bunker  Hill  battle,  49.  —  Washington  takes  command,  49.  —  The 
Soldiers'  Monument  erected,  50. — Three  old  British  cannon,  51.  —  A 
French  piece,  52. 

Cambridge  a  City.    By  George  Rufus  Cook 53 

Three  memorable  days,  53.  —  Massachusetts  cities,  54.  —  Rapid  increase 
of  population,  55. — The  three  villages  of  Cambridge  town,  55.  —  The 
streets  and  the  fire  department,  56.  —  Municipal  expenses  at  the  begin- 
ning, 57.  —  The  same  expenses  in  1895,  57.  —  Present  population,  59.  — 
Village  isolation  a  thing  of  the  past,  60.  —  The  water  supply  and  the  new 
parks,  62.  —  The  mayors  for  fifty  years,  63. 

Literary  Life  in  Cambridge.      By  Horace  E.  Scndder,  Editor  of  "The 

Atlantic  Monthly " 67 

A  clever  question,  67.  —  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  68.  —  Joseph  E.  Worces- 
ter, and  other  authors,  68.  —  The  printing-offices,  69.  —  Ramsay's  in 
Harvard  Square,  70.  —  Social  literary  life,  71. 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

Scientific  Cambridge.     By  John  Trowbridge,  S.  D. ,  Rumf ord  Professor  in 

Harvard  College,  and  Director  of  the  Jefferson  Physical  Laboratory  .  72 
The  most  noteworthy  portion  of  the  university,  72,  —  An  early  notebook, 
73.  —  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow  appomted  professor,  73.  —  Agassiz  excites  the 
spirit  of  research,  74.  —  Asa  Gray,  the  botanist,  74.  —  The  Scientific 
School,  75.  —  Alvan  Clark's  work,  76.  —  "  It  takes  an  eagle  to  train 
eaglets,"  7G.  —  Great  increase  of  investigators,  77. 

The  Chabactekistics  of  Municipal  Government  in  Cambridge.     By 

Hon.  William  A.  Bancroft,  Mayor  of  Cambridge 78 

Non- partisanship  a  distinctive  feature,  78.  —  The  pay-as-you-go  policy, 
79.  —  Tenure  of  office,  80.  —  The  machinery  of  the  government,  80.  — 
The  council  and  the  aldermen,  81.  —  The  assignment  of  executive 
power,  81. 

The  Rindge  Gifts.     By  Ex-Governor  William  E.  Russell 82 

A  new  epoch  marked,  82.  —  A  public  library  needed,  82.  —  Mr.  Rindge 
makes  a  generous  offer,  83.  —  It  is  accepted  by  the  city  with  thanks, 
83.  —  Other  gifts,  85.  —  The  Manual  Training  School  and  the  City 
Hall,  86. 

"  The  Cambridge  Idea."     By  Rev.  David  Nelson  Beach 87 

A  new  phrase,  87-  —  Its  meaning,  82.  —  The  heritage  of  Cambridge, 
89.  —  Fair  play  and  non-partisanship,  90.  —  The  enforcement  of  law, 
91.  —  The  no-license  campaigns,  92.  —  The  success  and  its  wide  influ- 
ence, 93.  —  "  The  Cambridge  Idea  in  Temperance  Reform,"  93.  —  The 
successive  votes,  94.  —  Division  lines  wiped  out,  95.  —  The  methods, 
97.  —  Noblesse  oblige,  98.  —  Advantages  of  "  The  Cambridge  Idea,"  99. 

The  Cambridge  Littoral.     By  Frederic  H.  Viaux 101 

What  Blaxton  saw  and  what  Winthrop  did,  101.  —  Tide-covered  low- 
lands, 102.  —  Marshes  reclaimed,  103.  —  The  adornment  of  the  basin  on 
the  part  of  Boston  and  Cambridge,  105.  —  The  Charles  River  Embank- 
ment Company,  106.  —  The  Metropolitan  Park  Commission,  108.  —  The 
Cambridge  Improvement  Company,  109.  —  Wharves  and  docks  of  Cam- 
bridge, 110.  —  The  transformation,  112. 

Cambridge  Water- Work 8.     By  Hon.  Chester  W.  Kingsley 113 

The  Cambridgepoi-t  Aqueduct  Company,  113.  —  Additional  privileges, 
113. — Stony  Brook  and  other  sources,  114.  —  The  financial  exhibit, 
115.  —  Improvements  effected  by  the  work  of  the  Water  Board,  116.  — 
Fresh  Pond  park  and  driveway,  117. — Membership  of  the  Water 
Board,  118. 

Cambridge  Parks.     By  Henry  D.  Yerxa,  President  of  the  Park  Commission  118 
The  beginning-  of  a  necessary  work,  119.  —  The  inadequacy  of  the  former 
parks,  120.  —  One  specimen,  121.  —  Cambridge  Field,  122.  — A  magnifi- 
cent driveway,  123.  —  What  Mr.  Lowell  thought,  125. 

Real-Estate  Interests  of  Cambridge.  By  Hon.  Leander  M.  Hannum  .  126 
Great  territorial  extent  of  the  early  town,  127.  —  A  "port  of  delivery," 
127.  — Freight  facilities,  127.  —  Imjjrovements  in  various  regions,  128. — 
Manufactures,  129.  —  Park  improvements,  129.  —  Remarkable  health- 
fulness  and  great  educational  advantages,  130.  —  Most  desirable  building 
sites,  130, 

The  Health  of  Cambridge.   By  Henry  P.  Waleott,  M.  D.,  Chairman  of  the 

Massachusetts  Board  of  Health 131 

Census  records,  131.  —  The  situation  healthful,  131.  —  Compared  with 
Boston,  131.  —  A  considerable  advantage,  132.  —  Good  sewerage  and 
good  water  supply,  132.  —  At  the  head  of  the  list  in  the  tenth  census  of 
the  United  States,  132, 


CONTENTS.  XV 

Burial-Places  in  Cambridge.     By  George  S.  Saunders,  Chairman  of  the 

Cambridge  Cemetery  Commissioners 133 

First  burial-place,  133.  —  The  Garden  Street  ground,  134.  —  The  old 
Milestone,  134.  —  Monument  to  the  Minute-Men,  135.  —  Major-General 
Gookin's  grave,  136.  —  The  Broadway  ground,  137.  —  The  Cambridge 
Cemetery,  138.  —  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery,  139.  —  The  Sphinx,  140.  — 
Franklin's  monument,  141. 

Hakvakd  University  in  its  Relations   to   the   City  of  Cambridge. 

By  Charles  WUliam  Eliot,  LL.D.,  President 142 

The  University  estate  and  its  purchase,  142.  —  The  Yard,  142.  —  Gain  to 
the  city  by  the  opening  of  the  University  grounds,  144.  —  The  teaching 
of  severe  experience,  144.  —  Population  enlarged  by  the  presence  of  the 
University,  145.  —  The  Botanic  Garden  and  the  Museum,  146.  —  Lec- 
tures and  concerts  given  in  the  University  buildings,  146.  —  Chapel  exer- 
cises, 146.  —  Advantages  to  the  schools,  146.  —  Gain  from  the  business 
of  lodging  the  students,  147.  —  Noted  names  that  add  to  the  interest  of 
living  in  Cambridge,  148.  —  As  comfortable  and  happy  a  population  as 
the  world  contains,  149.  —  Many  visitors,  149. 

BLarvard  University.     By  BjTon  Satterlee  Hurlbut,  A.  M.,  Recording  Sec- 
retary of  Harvard  University 149 

The  origin,  history,  and  purpose  of  Harvard,  149.  —  The  objects  of 
endowments,  150.  —  The  eight  schools  of  the  University,  151. — The 
various  subjects  of  instruction,  151.  —  Students  advised  as  to  their  work, 

152.  —  The  Lawrence   Scientific   School,    153.  —  The  Graduate  School, 

153.  —  The  Schools  of  Divinity  and  Law,  154.  —  Courses  in  the  Law 
School,  155.  —  The  Medical  and  Dental  Schools  and  their  courses  of 
study,  156.  —  Schools  of  Veterinary  Medicine  and  Agriculture,  157.  — 
The  Summer  School,  158.  —  The  endowments,  159.  —  Advantage  of  the 
elective  system,  1.59.  —  A  democratic  community,  160.  —  Beneficent  work 
of  the  students,  160.  —  Harvard  men  truth  seekers,  161. 

Chapel  at  Harvard.     By  the  Right  Reverend  William  Lawrence,  Bishop 

of  Massachusetts 161 

Development  of  the  University  from  the  College,  161.  —  "  Old  Jones " 
and  his  startling  bell,  161.  —  "  Good  old  Dr.  Peabody,"  162.  —  Greater 
maturity  of  the  students,  162.  —  Lifluence  of  Phillips  Brooks,  163.  —  The 
six  "preachers  in  residence,"  163.  —  Gain  to  Cambridge,  163. 

Physical  Training.    By  Dudley  A.  Sargent,  M.  D.,  Director  of  the  Hemen- 

way  Gymnasium 164 

Cambridge  the  centre  of  growth  in  municipal  health,  164.  —  Municipal 
conditions  for  prosperity  or  deterioration,  165.  —  Dr.  FoUen's  gymna- 
sium, 165.  —  Ineffectual  work,  166.  —  Games  on  the  Delta,  167.  — 
Rugby  football,  168.  —  New  apparatus,  169.  —  Athletic  sports  con- 
trolled, 170.  —  Effect  of  the  Cambridge  example  on  the  country,  171.  — 
The  youth  of  Cambridge  gain,  172.  — A  generous  offer  to  the  city,  173. 

Radcliffe  College.     By  Arthur  Gilman,  Regent  of  Radcliffe  College    .     .  174 
Harvard's  first  scholarship,  174.  —  The  name  Radcliffe  adopted,  174.  — 
A  long  look  ahead  by  Dr.  Steams,  175,  —  Origin  of  Radcliffe,  176.  — 
Long  study  of  the   plan,  176.  —  Fay  House  selected  at  an  early  date, 

177.  —  The  "simple  plan"  communicated  to  President  Eliot,  177. — 
Professor  Greenough  consulted,  178.  —  Seven  ladies  chosen  as  managers, 

178.  —  The  first  announcement,  179.  —  The  education  of  women  impor- 
tant, 180.  —  Why  women  prefer  a  college  allied  to  one  for  men,  181.  — 
The  intellectual  character  of  the  women  who  come,  181.  —  Professor 
Greenough  chairman,  182.  —  Fay  House  bought,  184.  —  Radcliffe  Col- 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

lege  incorporated,  184.  —  The  progress,  185.  —  Health  of  women  in  col- 
lege, 185.  —  The  end  attained,  186. 

The  Public  Schools  of  Cambridge.     By  Frank  A.  Hill,  Secretary  of  the 

Massachusetts  Board  of  Education 187 

Corlett's  "  faire  Grammar  Schoole,"  187.  —  Education  enforced,  188.  — 
Girls  taught  in  1789, 189.  —  The  first  teachers  men,  190.  —  The  Washing- 
ton Grammar  School,  190.  —  The  curriculum  of  the  early  schools,  191. — 
Margaret  Fuller  studies  Latin,  192.  —  The  girls  and  hoys  separated, 
192.  —  Taught  in  the  same  schools  again,  193.  —  The  high  schools, 
194.  —  One  high  school  for  the  entire  town,  195.  —  Edward  Everett 
delivers  an  eloquent  address,  195.  —  The  English  high  school  and  the 
Latin  school  separated,  196.  —  New  buildings  for  both,  1%.  —  The 
record  of  the  past,  197.  —  Punishment,  197.  —  Spelling  complained  of, 
197.  —  "  Crying  needs  "  in  early  days,  198.  —  A  contrast,  200.  —  Parents 
called  to  account,  200.  —  Morals  improved,  201.  —  The  schools  to-day, 
202.  —  A  wide  range  offered,  203.  —  Mr.  Cogswell's  ingenious  plan, 
205.  —  Kindergartens  and  evening  high  schools,  206.  —  Comparison 
shows  improvement  again,  207.  —  Inspiring  surroundings,  208. 

Private  Schools  in  Cambridge 208 

High  character  of  the  public  schools  has  its  influence,  208.  —  Professor 
Agassiz's  school,  209.  —  The  admirable  management  of  Mrs.  Agassiz, 
210.  —  Professor  Agassiz's  methods,  211.  —  Mr.  Kendall's  school;  Mr. 
Williston's  school,  212.  —  The  Browne  and  Nichols  School,  212.  — 
Classes  small,  212.  —  Success  of  the  school,  213.  —  A  new  building, 
213.  —  The  Cambridge  School  for  Girls,  214.  —  Its  buildings,  215.  — 
The  home  life,  216.  —  Miss  Smith's  school,  217.  —  The  schools  of  Miss 
Markham  and  Miss  Manson,  217. 

Cambridge  Journalism.   By  F.  Stanhope  Hill,  Editor  of  "  The  Cambridge 

Tribune  " 218 

The  first  Cambridge  newspaper,  218.  —  Joseph  T.  Buckingham  and  his 
papers,  219.  —  "A  feller  that  ain't  a  Feared,"  219.  —  Parsons,  Garrison, 
Lovejoy,  220.  —  "  The  Cambridge  Chronicle  "  begins  the  new  era,  221.  — 
"The  Cambridge  Press,"  221.  — "The  Cambridge  Tribune,"  222.— 
"The  Cambridge  News,"  222,  —  "The  Sacred  Heart  Eeview,"  223.— 
College  Journalism,  223. 

The  Cambridge  Manual  Training  School  for  Boys.     By  Charles  H. 

Morse,  the  Superintendent 224 

Mr.  Rindge  makes  an  offer,  224.  —  The  school  established,  225.  —  Its 
reputation,  225.  —  A  broad  training,  226.  —  Military  drills,  227.  —  The 
glee  club,  227. 

The  Public  Libr.\ry.     By  William  J.  Rolfe,  Litt.  D 228 

The  Cambridge  Athenaeum,  228.  —  The  Dana  Library,  228.  —  Mr. 
Rindge  makes  an  offer  of  a  building,  228.  —  Features  of  the  institution, 
229.— The  Memorial  Room,  230.  —  Gifts  to  the  library,  231.  —  Miss 
Almira  Hayward,  232.  —  The  present  librarian,  232. 

The  Protestant  Churches  of  Cambridge.   By  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie, 

D.  D 233 

Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  233.— Thomas  Shepard,  233.  — The  First  Church 
in  Cambridge,  234.  —  Anne  Hutchinson,  235.  —  Urian  Oakes  in  Newton, 
236.  —  Rev.  Nathaniel  Appleton,  237.  —  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes,  the  histo- 
rian, 237.  —  The  College  Church,  238.  —  A  separation,  238.  —  The  Uni- 
tarian pastors,  239.  —  The  Episcopal  churches,  239.  —  Dr.  Briggs's  long 
pastorate,  246. — Methodist  and  Baptist  churches,  240. — The  Univer- 
salist  Church,  241.  —  Other  churches,  241.  —  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  the 
Y.  W.  C.  A.,  242.  —  The  work  of  the  churches,  243. 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

The  Catholics  axd  thelb  Churches.  By  Judge  Charles  J.  Mclntire  .  .  244 
Father  Doillettes  comes,  244.  —  Rev.  John  de  Cheverus,  245.  — St.  John's 
Parish  and  the  Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  24G.  —  The  Catholic  popu- 
lation increases,  247.  —  Other  parishes  formed,  248.  —  The  parish  of  St. 
Peter's  Church,  249.  —  The  parish  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  250.  —  St. 
Pauls  Church,  250.  —  The  French  Catholic  Church,  251.  —  The  Catho- 
lic Union,  252.  —  Temperance  and  charitable  societies,  252.  —  Great 
charity  between  Catholics  and  Protestants,  253. 

The  Episcopal  Theological  School.    By  the  Rev.  (Jeorge  Hodges,  D.  D., 

Dean 254 

Mr.  Benjamin  Tyler  Reed  founds  the  school,  254.  —  Its  principles  and 
what  Phillips  Brooks  thought,  255.  —  The  buildings  and  the  instructors, 
256. 

The  New-Church  Theological  School.    By  Rev.  Theodore  F.  Wright, 

Ph.D 257 

The  buildings,  the  grounds,  and  the  principles  of  the  school,  257.  — 
Swedenborg  the  interpreter  of  the  Scriptures,  258.  —  The  management 
and  the  officei-s,  258. 

The  Associated  Charities  of  Cambridge.    By  William  Taggard  Piper  .  259 
Dr.  Charles  E.  Vaughan  the  originator,  259.  —  The  objects  and  the  work 
of  the  society,  259.  —  Its  work  test,  260.  —  Does  not  give  alms,  261. 

The  Avon  Home.     By  William  Taggard  Piper 262 

Mrs.  Paine  the  original  president,  262.  — Many  applications  for  admis- 
sion, 263.  —  The  anonymous  founder  presents  the  home  a  farm,  263.  — 
The  beneficent  work  done,  264. 

The  Prospect  Union.     By  Rev.  Robert  E.  Ely,  President 265 

Harvard  students  and  the  wage-earners,  265.  —  Some  of  the  lecturers, 
266.  —  Not  a  charitable  institution,  266.  —  Non-sectarian,  266. 

An  Old-Time  Society.     By  Arthur  Oilman 267 

Dr.  Holmes  works  in  "  the  heated  term,"  267.  —  A  meeting  at  Porter's 
Tavern,  267.  —  An  address  to  the  small  public  of  Old  Cambridge,  268.  — 
Famous  names,  269.  —  Subjects  of  thought,  270.  —  Discussing  a  boat, 
271.  —  The  earliest  "  Board  of  Health,"  271.  — A  bathing-house,  272. — 
Long  terms  of  office,  273. 

East  End  Christian  Union 275 

Beneficent  work  of  Mr.  Clapp  and  many  others,  275.  —  A  lending  library, 
275.  —  The  Triangle  Club,  275. 

The  Cambridge  Hospital.     By  Dr.  Morrill  Wyman 276 

The  poor  cared  for  in  early  times,  276.  —  Societies  formed,  277.  —  Miss 
Emily  E.  Parsons  begins  a  great  work,  277.  —  Isaac  Fay's  bequest, 
278.  —  The  present  building  erected,  278. 

Freemasonry  in  Cambridge.     By  Henry  Endicott,  Past  Grand  Master  of 

the  Grand  Lodge  of  Massachusetts 280 

Amicable  Lodge  begins  the  work,  280.  —  The  Masonic  Association, 
280.  —  Many  members  added,  281.  —  Dr.  Paige's  semi-centennial 
address,  283.  —  The  present  lodges,  284. 

Odd-Fellowship  in  Cambridge.     By  Rev.  George  W.  Bickuell,  D.  D.  .     .  285 
Inception  of  the  order  in  America,  285.  —  Its  purpose,  285.  —  The  vari- 
ous lodges  in  Cambridge,  286. 

The  Grand  Army  in  Cambridge,  by  John  D.  Billings 287 

Cambridge  patriotism  great,  287.  —  The  Grand  Army  bom,  288.  —  The 
various  Posts,  289.  —  The  John  A.  Logan  Post,  290.  —  The  Woman's 
Relief  Corps,  291. 

Knights  of  Pythias.     By  Eben  W.  Pike 292 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

Improved  Order  of  Red  Men 293 

Cambridge  Clubs.     By  George  Rowland  Cox 294 

The  Colonial  Club,  294. —Its  building  and  its  officers,  294. —  The 
Newtowne  Club  and  its  officers,  295.  —  The  Cambridge  Club  and  its 
officers,  295.  —  The  Economy  Club,  295.  —  The  Cantabrigia  Club  and  its 
officers,  296. 

The  Citizens'  Trade  Association  and  its  Officers 297 

Financial  and  Manufacturing.     By  George  Howland  Cox 301 

Financial,  301.  —  The  Cambridge  Bank,  301.  —  Middlesex  Bank, 
303.  —  Lechmere  Bank,  303.  —  National  City  Bank,  303.  —  Charles  River 
Bank,  304.  —  The  First  National  Bank,  305.  —  The  Cambridge  National 
Bank,  307.  —  Cambridge  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company,  307.  — 
The  Cambridge  Savings  Bi^ik,  309.  —  Cambridgeport  Savings  Bank, 
311.  —  North  Avenue  Savings  Bank,  311. — East  Cambridge  Savings 
Bank,  312.  Manufactures.  —  Unsurpassed  advantages  for  manufactur- 
ing in  Cambridge,  313.  —  Woodward  Emery's  remarks  on  this  subject, 
314.  —  The  Charles  River  region  and  the  parks,  315.  —  The  efficient  fire 
and  police  departments,  316.  —  Fresh  water  in  ample  quantities,  316. 
—  The  Cambridge  Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Co.,  317. — Table  of  com- 
parative water-rates,  318.  —  Valuation  and  polls  in  Cambridge  for  a 
series  of  years,  319.  —  Assets  and  liabilities  of  Cambridge,  320.  —  Prop- 
erty exempt  by  law  on  account  of  its  public  beneficence,  320.  —  The  first 
typical  railway  car,  321.  —  Manufactures  in  Cambridge  for  the  year  end- 
ing April  1,  1845,  322.  —  The  same  for  the  year  ending  June  1,  1855, 
323.  —  The  same  for  the  year  ending  May  1,  1805,  324.  —  The  same  for 
the  year  ending  May  1,  1875,  325.  — The  same  for  the  year  ending  June 
30,  1885,  327.  —  Manufactures  during  the  year  1890,  328.  —  General 
statistics  of  manufactures  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1885,  321. 

Printing  and  Publishing,  322.  —  Address  by  Hon.  H.  0.  Houghton, 
332.  —  The  work  of  John  Wilson,  Sr.,  334.  —  The  Riverside  Press,  334.  — 
The  University  Press,  336.  —  The  Athenaeum  Press,  337.  —  The  Cam- 
bridgeport Diary  Co.,  339.  —  Other  establishments,  341.  —  Musical  Instru- 
ments, 342.  —  Machinery  and  Boiler  Manufacture,  345.  —  Manufacturing 
Confectioners,  356.  —  Soap  Manufacturers,  358.  —  Carriage  Manufacture, 
362.  —  Furniture  Manufacture,  364.  —  Miscellaneous  Manufactures, 
366.  —  The  Boston  Woven  Hose  and  Rubber  Co.,  366.  —  John  P. 
Squire  &  Co.,  371.— The  Cambridge  Electric  Light  Co.,  373.  — The 
Reversible  Collar  Co.,  375.  —  The  New  York  Biscuit  Co.,  378.  —  Alvan 
Clark  &  Sons,  379.  —The  Cambridge  Gas  Light  Co.,  380.  —The  Ameri- 
can Rubber  Co.,  381.  —  A.  H.  Hews  &  Co.,  383.  —  The  Riverside 
Bindery,  383.  —  Parry  Brothers,  manufacturers  of  Brick,  386.  —  Alex- 
ander McDonald  &  Son,  388.  —  The  Dover  Stamping  Co.,  389.  —  The 
Street  Railways,  395, 
Government  of  the  City  of  Cambridge,  1896 401 

The  Celebration  of  the  Completion  op  the  Half-Century.      Com- 
mittees       406 

Index 409 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  committee  desires  to  express  its  obligations  to  the  Harvard  Camera  Club  and  the  Old 
Cambridge  Camera  Club  for  valuable  contributions  of  photographs. 

PAOI 

The  Washington  Elm Frontispiece 

The  Longfellow  House  Garden,  Winter  Scene          ....  16 

Craigie  Street .28 

Harvard  Street          36 

The  Birthplace  of  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes 44 

Portraits  of  Mayors,  184t)-1869 54 

Portraits  of  Mayors,  1870-1896 62 

The  Longfellow  House 68 

The  Lowell  House 68 

The  City  Hall 78 

Frederick  H.  Rindge 82 

Residences 90 

Residences 98 

Irving  Street 106 

Engine,  Cambridge  Water- Works 114 

Park  Shelter,  Cambridge  Field 120 

Residences 126 

Washington  Avenue 132 

The  Harvard  Gate 142 

College  Buildings 150 

College  Buildings 158 

The  Hemenway  Gymnasium,  Harvard  University       ....  164 

Radcliffe  College 174 

The  English  High  School 188 

The  Cambridge  Latin  School 204 

The  Manual  Training  School 210 

The  Manual  Training  School,  Interiors 224 

The  Cambridge  Public  Library 228 

Churches 234 

Churches 244 

The  Episcopal  Theological  School 254 

New-Church  Theological  School 258 

The  Cambridge  Hospital 276 

The  Soldiers'  Monument,  Cambridge  Common 288 

The  Colonial  Club  House 294 

The  Newtowne  Club  House    .         . 294 

The  Cambridge  Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Co.  Building  .        .        .  300 

The  Riverside  Press  in  1852 334 


XX  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The  ErvERsiDE  Press  in  1896 334 

The  Athen^um  Press 336 

The  University  Press 336 

Buildings  of  the  Hawson  &  Morrison  Manufacturing  Co.   .        .  348 

Buildings  of  Lamb  &  Ritchie 352 

Buildings  of  Henderson  Bros 352 

Buildings  of  D.  M.  Hazen  &  Sons 356 

Buildings  of  George  Close,  Confectioner 356 

Buildings  of  Curtis  Davis  &  Co 358 

Buildings  of  John  Reardon  &  Son 360 

Buildings  of  W.  C.  H.  Badger  &  Co 364 

Buildings  of  the  Boston  Woven  Hose  and  Rubber  Co.        .        .  366 

Buildings  of  the  New  York  Biscuit  Co 378 

Buildings  of  the  American  Rubber  Co 382 

Buildings  of  the  Reversible  Collar  Co 382 

The  Metropolitan  Storage  Waeehoubk 396 


I. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  JOHN   FISKE,  Litt.  D.,  LL.  D. 

When,  in  1630,  the  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  trans- 
ferred itself  from  London  to  Massachusetts,  bringing  its  gov- 
ernor, John  Winthrop,  and  its  charter,  the  movement  was  so 
popular  in  England  that  more  than  a  thousand  persons  came 
over  in  the  course  of  that  year;  and  before  ten  years  had 
elapsed,  more  than  twenty  thousand  had  come  to  stay.  The 
first  settlements  of  the  Winthrop  party  were  scattered  about 
the  coast  near  Charles  River,  making  the  beginnings  of  Charles- 
town,  Boston,  Dorchester,  Roxbury,  and  Watertown.  Among 
these  places  Boston  was  clearly  marked  for  preeminence  by  its 
geographical  position,  but  it  was  not  at  first  the  intention  of 
the  Company  to  make  it  the  seat  of  government.  A  position 
somewhat  further  inland  would  be  more  easily  defensible  against 
the  enemy  from  whom  most  was  to  be  feared,  —  not  the  Indi- 
ans, but  the  war-ships  of  King  Charles.  The  transfer  of  the 
charter,  which  practically  metamorphosed  a  powerful  trading 
company  into  a  serai-independent  republic,  was  not  likely  to  be 
regarded  with  favor  by  the  Crown.  In  point  of  fact,  we  know 
that  by  1635  Charles  was  intending  to  suppress  the  Company. 
He  would  very  likely  have  carried  out  his  intention,  if  affairs 
in  Scotland  had  not  suddenly  absorbed  his  energies.  After  the 
tumult  at  St.  Giles's  church  in  Edinburgh  in  1637,  when  the 
old  woman  threw  her  camp-stool  at  the  bishop's  head,  the  char- 
ter of  Massachusetts  was  safe  for  many  a  year  to  come ;  but 
before  that  time  the  settlers  had  much  reason  for  regarding  it 
as  in  danger. 

The  situation  of  Watertown  was  a  little  too  far  inland  for 
CO.  venience,  but  a  position  on  Charles  River  somewhat  lower 
than  Watertown  would  be  far  less  accessible  to  war-ships  — 
either  English  or  foreign  —  than  the  peninsidas  of  Boston  and 
Charlestown,  while  by  palisades  to  the  north  and  west  it  might 


2  THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

be  made  to  serve  as  a  frontier  defense  against  the  red  men. 
"  Wherefore,"  says  Edward  Johnson,  "  they  rather  made  choice 
to  enter  further  among  the  Indians  than  hazard  the  fury  of 
malignant  adversaries  who  in  a  rage  might  pursue  them,  and 
therefore  chose  a  place  situate  on  Charles  River,  between 
Charles  Towne  and  Water  Towne,  where  they  erected  a  town 
called  New  Towne,  now  named  Cambridge,  being  in  form  like 
a  list  cut  off  from  the  broadcloth  of  the  two  fore-named  towns, 
where  this  wandering  race  of  Jacobites  gathered  the  eighth 
church  of  Christ."  The  desirable  spot,  which  we  now  know  as 
Old  Cambridge,  was  selected  on  the  28th  of  December,  1630. 
It  was  agreed  that  the  governor,  deputy-governor,  and  all  the 
assistants  (except  Endicott,  already  settled  at  Salem,  and  one 
other  who  was  about  to  return  to  England)  should  build  their 
houses  there  during  the  following  year,  and  that  all  the  ord- 
nance and  munition  should  be  moved  thither.  This  agreement 
was  not  carried  out,  save  by  Thomas  Dudley,  the  deputy-gov- 
ernor, who  built  his  house  in  1631,  on  the  site  which  is  now  the 
northwest  corner  of  South  and  Dunster  streets,  and  his  son- 
in-law,  Simon  Bradstreet,  who  built  upon  the  Boylston  Street 
corner  of  Harvard  Square.  Upon  that  familiar  site  may  very 
likely  have  begun  the  literary  activity  of  New  England,  with 
some  of  those  ponderous  verses  of  Mrs.  Bradstreet's,  concerning 
.which  Rev.  John  Norton  once  said  that  if  Virgil  could  only 
have  seen  them  he  would  have  thrown  his  own  heathen  dog- 
gerel into  the  fire  !  Winthrop  and  the  other  members  of  the 
council  never  came  to  dwell  in  the  New  Town,  and  the  inten- 
tion of  making  it  the  seat  of  government  was  gradually  aban- 
doned. The  General  Court  was  assembled  first  at  Charlestown 
in  the  summer  of  1630  ;  then  at  Boston  until  May,  1634  ;  then 
at  the  New  Town  until  May,  1636  ;  then  at  Boston,  and  back 
again  at  the  New  Town  from  April,  1637,  till  September,  1638  ; 
and  always  thereafter  at  Boston,  until  the  stormy  days  that 
ushered  in  the  Revolution. 

The  original  New  Town  —  or  what  we  might  perhaps  call 
"  Oldest  Cambridge "  —  was  comprised  between  Harvard 
Square  and  the  river,  from  Holyoke  Street  on  the  east  to  Brat- 
tle Square  on  the  west.  By  1635,  the  streets  now  called  Mount 
Auburn,  Winthrop,  South,  Holyoke,  Dunster,  and  Boylston 
had  come  into  existence  within  these  limits.  The  northern 
frontier  street,  upon  the  site  of  Harvard  Street  and  Harvard 


"*  HANDSOME  CONTRIVED  STREETS."  3 

Square,  was  called  Braintree  Street.  A  road  upon  the  site  of 
the  lower  end  of  Brattle  Street  with  Brattle  Square  was  known 
as  Creek  Lane,  and  it  was  continued  in  a  southeastei-ly  sweep 
into  Boylston  Street  by  Marsh  Lane,  afterwards  called  Eliot 
Street.  On  the  north  side  of  Braintree  Street,  opposite  Dun- 
ster,  and  thence  eastward  about  as  far  as  opposite  the  site  of 
Linden,  stood  a  row  of  six  houses,  and  at  their  back  was  the 
ancient  forest.  Through  this  forest  ran  the  trail  or  path  from 
Charlestown  to  Watertown,  nearly  coinciding  with  the  crooked 
line  Kirkland- Mason- Brattle -Elmwood- Mount  Auburn;  this 
was  the  first  highway  from  the  seaboard  into  the  inland  country. 
The  palisaded  wall,  with  its  ditch,  for  defense  against  Indians 
and  wolves,  started  at  Windmill  Hill,  by  the  present  site  of  Ash 
Street,  and  ran  along  the  northern  side  of  the  present  Common 
into  what  is  now  Jarvis  Field,  and  perhaps  beyond. 

A  writer  in  1633  mentions  the  New  Town  as  "  too  far  from 
the  sea,  being  the  greatest  inconvenience  it  hath."  He  de- 
scribes it  as  "  one  of  the  neatest  and  best  compacted  towns  in 
New  England,  having  many  fair  structures,  with  many  hand- 
some contrived  streets.  The  inhabitants,  most  of  them,  are 
very  rich,  and  well  stored  with  cattle  of  all  sorts,  having  many 
hundred  acres  of  land  paled  in  with  general  fence,  .  .  .  which 
secures  all  their  weaker  cattle  from  the  wild  beasts."  ^ 

The  common  grazing-land  covered  the  site  of  the  present 
Common,  and  extended  bej'^ond  the  palisade  as  far  as  Linnaean 
Street.  It  was  at  the  outset  directed  that  houses  should  be 
built  within  the  "Town  "  until  it  should  be  properly  filled,  be- 
fore going  beyond.  By  1635,  there  were  sixty-four  house-lots 
within  the  Town,  of  which  about  fifty  had  homesteads  built 
upon  them.  The  region  next  occupied  by  dwellings  was  the 
"  West  End,"  extending  between  Garden  Street  and  the  river, 
as  far  west  as  Sparks  Street.  To  provide  against  the  building 
of  cheap  and  frail  structures,  it  was  agreed  in  1633  that  all 
houses  should  be  covered  with  slate  or  shingles,  not  with  thatch. 
Before  the  end  of  1635,  there  were  at  least  eighty-five  houses  in 
the  New  Town. 

Eastward  from  Holyoke  (then  called  Crooked)   Street  ran 

Back  Lane,  while  Braintree  Street,   deflecting  southeastward, 

took  the  name  of  Field  Lane.     These  two  lanes,  meeting  near 

the  present  junction  of  Bow  and  Arrow  streets,  formed  the 

1  Wood's  New  England^ s  Prospect,  p.  45. 


4  THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

"  highway  into  the  Neck,"  running  eastward  as  far  as  the  site 
of  Washington  Square.  Under  the  somewhat  vague  phrase, 
"  The  Neck,"  was  comprised  the  territory  now  covered  by  Cam- 
bridgeport  and  East  Cambridge.  It  was  divided  into  arable 
lots,  and  parceled  among  the  inhabitants  in  severalty.  The 
western  part  was  cut  up  into  small  portions  of  from  one  to 
three  acres,  but  to  the  eastward  of  the  site  of  Hancock  Street 
it  was  granted  in  large  farms  of  from  twenty  to  sixty  acres. 
This  region  of  the  Neck  was  marked  off  and  protected  by  a  pal- 
ing which  ran  —  to  use  modern  names  —  from  Holyoke  Place 
to  Gore  Hall,  and  thence  to  the  line  between  Cambridge  and 
Somerville  at  Line  Street  near  Cambridge  Street. 

Thus  we  find  in  the  beginnings  of  Cambridge  clear  traces  of 
the  ancient  English  method  of  forming  a  town,  with  its  threefold 
partition  into  town  mark,  arable  mark,  and  common.  At  a  later 
time  a  second  arable  portion  was  inclosed  between  Garden  Street 
and  Vassall  Lane,  westward  from  Wyeth  Street  to  Fresh  Pond 
meadows ;  this  was  known  as  the  "  West  Field."  And  there 
was  yet  another,  a  little  to  the  north  of  the  Palfrey  estate  on 
Oxford  Street,  and  known  as  "  Pine  Swamp  Field."  Extensive 
marshes  stretched  along  the  bank  of  the  river  from  the  vicinity 
of  Mount  Auburn  to  East  Cambridge.  Along  the  west  side  of 
Brattle  Square  ran  a  small  creek,  which  curved  southwestward 
through  marshes,  inclosing  Eliot  and  South  streets,  and  empty- 
ing into  Charles  River  near  the  site  of  College  Wharf.  This 
creek,  deepened  and  widened  into  a  canal,  furnished  access  to 
the  Town  from  the  river,  and  at  its  mouth  was  a  ferry,  estab- 
lished in  1635,  connecting  with  a  road  on  the  south  bank  through 
Brookline  to  Boston  Neck.  The  only  other  communication 
with  Boston  was  through  Charlestown  and  by  ferry  to  Copp's 
Hill.  The  inconvenience  of  depending  solely  upon  ferries  was 
soon  felt,  and  by  1662  the  Great  Bridge  was  built,  connected 
by  a  causeway  with  what  we  call  Boylston  Street,  and  leading 
across  to  what  we  call  Allston.  There  was  no  other  bridge 
until  the  one  from  East  Cambridge  to  Charlestown  was  finished 
in  1786,  soon  to  be  followed  by  West  Boston  Bridge  in  1793, 
which  wrought  a  great  change  in  the  facing  of  Cambridge  to- 
ward Boston.  Throughout  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies the  true  river  front  of  Cambridge  was  at  the  Great  Bridge. 
The  filling  in  of  Back  Bay,  the  westward  expansion  of  Boston, 
and  the  completion  of  Harvard  Bridge  in  1890,  have  been  steps 
toward  restoring  the  ancient  frontage. 


"A  PALLYSADOE  ABOUTE   THE  NEWE  TOWNER        5 

The  first  Meeting-House  stood  on  the  southwest  corner  of 
Dunster  and  Mount  Auburn  streets.  It  was  soon  found  too 
small  and  flimsy,  and  in  1650  a  better  one  was  built  at  the 
southwest  corner  of  the  College  Yard,  nearly  on  the  site  of 
Dane  Hall.  From  1650  to  1833  that  spot  was  occupied  by  the 
Meeting-House  of  the  First  Parish.  The  space  between  the 
sites  of  Church  and  Garden  streets  was  inclosed  as  a  grave- 
yard or  God's  Acre  in  1636.  Of  next  importance  to  the  church, 
in  a  New  England  town,  was  the  Town-House.  In  early  times 
the  Meeting-House  was  commonly  used  for  civil  as  well  as 
ecclesiastical  purposes,  and  there  the  town-meetings  were  held. 
In  Cambridge  a  Court-House,  built  in  1708,  was  used  also  as  a 
Town-House  ;  it  stood  in  the  middle  of  Harvard  Square,  near 
the  waiting-place  of  the  Broadway  and  East  Cambridge  cars. 

Winthrop  Square  was  an  open  market-place,  and  on  its  west 
side  after  1660  stood  the  jail.  The  place  of  execution,  or 
"  Gallows  Lot,"  was  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  Common,  on  the 
northwest  corner  of  Linnaean  Street  and  North  Avenue.  There 
in  1755  an  old  negro  woman  named  Phillis  was  burned  alive 
for  murdering  her  master.  Captain  Codman,  of  Charlestown. 

In  bringing  together  the  various  topographical  features  of 
Old  Cambridge  in  its  early  days,  the  strict  sequence  of  chro- 
nology has  been  to  some  extent  disregarded.  We  may  now 
return  to  the  year  1632,  when  the  Court  of  Assistants  imposed 
a  tax  of  sixty  pounds  sterling  upon  "  the  several  plantations 
within  the  lyraitts  of  this  pattent  towards  the  makeing  of  a 
pallysadoe  aboute  the  Newe  Towne."  Here  the  men  of  Water- 
town  protested,  and  refused  to  pay  their  share  of  the  tax  because 
they  were  not  represented  in  the  body  which  imposed  it.  The 
ensuing  discussion  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  a  House  of 
Deputies,  in  which  every  town  was  represented.  Henceforth 
the  Council  of  Assistants  in  conjunction  with  the  House  of 
Deputies  formed  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 
Thus  the  building  of  a  wooden  palisade  from  Ash  Street  to 
Jarvis  Field  furnished  the  occasion  for  the  first  great  assertion 
of  the  principles  of  constitutional  law  and  free  government  in 
New  England.  Two  years  before  the  issue  of  that  illegal  Avrit 
of  ship  money,  which  it  is  John  Hampden's  glory  to  have  re- 
sisted, did  these  "  village  Hampdens  "  of  Watertowai  utter  their 
memorable  protest. 

In  the  simimer  of  1632,  a  congregation  from  Braintree  in 


6  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

Essex  came  over  to  Massachusetts  and  began  to  settle  near 
Mount  WoUaston,  where  they  left  the  name  of  Braintree  on 
the  map  ;  but  in  August  they  removed  to  the  New  Town,  where 
Braintree  Street  took  its  name  from  them.  Their  pastor,  the 
eminent  Thomas  Hooker,  who  had  been  obliged  to  flee  to  Hol- 
land, arrived  in  the  course  of  the  next  year.  This  accession 
raised  the  population  of  the  New  Town  to  something  like  500 
persons.  But  the  new-comers  were  not  satisfied  with  things  as 
they  found  them,  and  by  1634  we  begin  to  hear  them  talk  about 
going  elsewhere.  Some  bold  explorers  had  penetrated  far  west, 
even  to  the  Connecticut  valley,  and  brought  back  glowing  ac- 
counts of  its  fertility  and  beauty.  Hooker's  people  declared 
that  there  was  not  room  enough  in  the  New  Town  for  their 
cattle,  and  they  wished  to  go  and  take  possession  of  the  Con- 
necticut valley  and  keep  out  the  Dutch,  who  had  set  up  a  claim 
to  it.  Besides  these  specific  reasons  they  alleged  in  general 
"  the  strong  bent  of  their  spirits  to  remove  thither." 

In  this  scheme  of  removal  there  is  no  doubt  that  "  more  was 
meant  than  meets  the  ear."  It  has  been  surmised  that  it  was 
rather  the  pastor  than  the  cattle  that  was  cramped  for  room, 
for  one  small  colony  could  hardly  be  expected  to  hold  two  such 
potent  and  masterful  spirits  as  Thomas  Hooker  and  John  Cot- 
ton. But  the  root  of  the  trouble  was  evidently  something  deeper 
and  more  important  than  personal  jealousy.  The  colony  in 
Massachusetts  Bay  had  adopted  the  policy  of  restricting  the 
suffrage  to  members  of  the  Congregational  church.  This  policy 
was  primarily  intended  to  keep  out  Episcopalians  and  other 
"  malignants."  The  subsequent  conduct  of  Hooker's  people 
shows  that  they  disapproved  of  it.  No  other  ground  of  differ- 
ence between  them  and  their  neighbors  was  nearly  so  important 
as  this,  but  both  Hooker  and  Governor  Winthrop  were  great 
men,  and  too  discreet  to  indulge  in  a  controversy  that  would 
breed  schism  and  bitterness.  Some  objections  were  raised  to 
"  removing  a  candlestick,"  but  the  candlestick  would  not  stay. 
In  the  course  of  the  year  1635  began  the  exodus  from  the 
Charles  Kiver  to  the  Connecticut.  In  June,  1636,  Mr.  Hooker 
went  with  most  of  his  congregation  and  founded  Hartford,  while 
the  congregations  of  Dorchester  and  Watertown  founded  Wind- 
sor and  Wethersfield.  The  exodus  from  the  New  Town  was  so 
great  that  of  the  families  dwelling  there  in  January,  1635,  not 
more  than  eleven  are  known  to  have  remained  until  the  end  of 
1636. 


MR.  SHEPARD'S  MINISTRY.  7 

But  the  places  of  those  who  departed  were  filled  without 
delay.  In  the  autumn  of  1635,  Rev.  Thomas  Shepard  arrived 
from  England  with  his  congregation,  and  forthwith  the  meet- 
ing-house and  the  dwellings  of  the  old  company  were  occupied 
by  the  new.  The  next  year  saw  the  little  colony  convidsed 
by  the  religious  teachings  of  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchinson,  who  dwelt, 
with  her  large  family,  on  the  site  of  the  Old  Corner  Bookstore 
in  Boston.  This  brilliant  woman  won  over,  at  least  partly,  to 
her  views,  John  Cotton,  the  teacher  of  the  Boston  church,  and 
Harry  Vane,  the  youthful  governor ;  while  John  Wilson,  the 
pastor,  and  ex-Governor  Winthrop  were  opposed  to  her.  Over 
theological  questions  of  "  grace  "  and  "  works  "  civil  dudgeon 
grew  high,  and  when  the  freemen  were  assembled  on  the  New 
Town  Common,  in  the  apple-blossom  season  of  1637,  to  elect 
their  magistrates  for  the  ensuing  year,  there  was  some  fear  of 
a  tumult,  until  Mr.  Wilson  climbed  into  a  gnarled  and  ancient 
oak-tree  and  made  a  sensible  speech  to  the  people.  Winthrop 
was  elected  governor,  and  the  Hutchinsonians  were  thorouglily 
defeated.  In  August,  a  synod,  assembled  in  the  meeting-house, 
condemned  eighty-two  opinions  as  blasphemous,  erroneous,  or 
unsafe.  In  November,  the  General  Court  summoned  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  to  the  New  Town,  and  sentenced  her  to  banishment 
from  Massachusetts,  with  many  of  her  friends  and  kinsfolk. 
In  view  of  these  proceedings,  Shepard  seems  to  have  dreaded 
the  displeasure  of  Vane,  who  had  returned  to  England  ;  for  a 
moment  he  wjls  inclined  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Hooker, 
whose  daughter  he  had  lately  married,  and  lead  his  congrega- 
tion to  the  beautiful  hillside  of  Mattabeseck,  on  the  Connecti- 
cut River  below  Wethersfield.  But  it  was  left  for  other  settlers 
a  few  years  later  to  occupy  that  spot  and  call  it  Middletown. 
Shepard  remained  in  the  New  Town,  and  his  presence  there  is 
believed  to  have  shaped  its  destinies.  For  his  "  vigilancy " 
against  heresies  had  been  well  proved  in  the  Hutchinson  con- 
troversy, and  Cotton  Mather  tells  us  that  "  it  was  with  a  re- 
spect unto  this  vigilancy,  and  the  enlightening  and  powerful 
ministry  of  Mr.  Shepard,  that,  when  the  foundation  of  a  college 
was  to  be  laid,  Cambridge  rather  than  any  other  place  was 
pitched  upon  to  be  the  seat  of  that  happy  seminary :  out  of 
which  there  proceeded  many  notable  preachers,  who  were  made 
such  by  their  sitting  under  Mr.  Shepard's  ministry."  ^ 
^  Mather's  Magnolia,  III.  v.  12. 


8  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

The  founding  of  Harvard  College  was,  of  course,  the  car- 
dinal event  in  the  history  of  Cambridge.  In  October,  1636, 
the  General  Court  agreed  to  give  £400  toward  the  founding  of 
a  college ;  in  November,  1637,  it  was  ordered  that  the  college 
should  be  placed  in  the  New  Town.  "  And  as  wee  were  think- 
ing and  consulting  how  to  effect  this  great  work,  it  pleased  God 
to  stir  up  the  heart  of  one  Mr.  Harvard  (a  godly  gentleman, 
and  a  lover  of  learning,  there  living  amongst  us)  to  give  the 
one  halfe  of  his  estate  (it  being  in  all  about  .£1700)  towards 
the  erecting  of  a  Colledge,  and  all  his  Library ;  after  him 
another  gave  X300,  others  after  them  cast  in  more,  and  the 
publique  hand  of  the  state  added  the  rest."  ^ 

Most  of  the  clergymen  who  came  to  New  England  were  grad- 
uates of  Cambridge,  and  as  soon  as  the  New  Town  was  desig- 
nated as  the  seat  of  the  college,  people  seem  to  have  begun 
calling  it  Cambridge.  In  May,  1638,  this  change  of  name  was 
sanctioned  by  the  General  Court,  and  in  March,  1639,  the  name 
of  Harvard  was  given  to  the  college.  For  the  college  yard  was 
taken  the  land  between  the  Charlestown  highway  (Kirkland 
Street)  and  Braintree  Street,  the  name  of  which  was  changed 
to  Harvard  Street.  A  fence  and  gate  between  the  college  yard 
and  the  graveyard,  near  the  site  of  the  present  flagstaff,  served 
to  keep  out  of  the  village  the  cattle  that  grazed  on  the  Common. 
Across  Harvard  Street  (near  Linden)  was  the  east  gate  of  the 
town ;  and  where  the  palisade  crossed  the  Watertown  highway 
(Brattle  Street)  at  Ash  Street  was  the  west  gate. 

In  1639,  the  first  printing-press  in  America  north  of  the  city 
of  Mexico  was  set  up  by  Stephen  Daye,  at  the  west  corner  of 
Dunster  Street  and  Harvard  Square.  Among  its  earliest  pro- 
ductions were  Peirce's  New  England  Almanack,  and  the  Bay 
Psalm  Book,  and  there  was  afterward  printed  that  monument 
of  labor,  Eliot's  Indian  Bible. 

The  complaints  of  insufficient  land  led  to  extensive  grants  of 
territory,  until  from  1644  to  1655  Cambridge  attained  enormous 
dimensions,  including  the  whole  areas  of  Brighton  and  Newton 
on  the  south  side  of  the  river,  and  on  the  other  hand  in  a  north- 
westerly direction  the  whole  or  large  parts  of  Arlington,  Lex- 
ington, Bedford,  and  Billerica.  In  1655,  this  vast  area  was 
first  curtailed  by  cutting  off  the  parts  beyond  Lexington.  Then 
in  1688,  Newton,  which  had  been  known  as  Cambridge  Village 
'  New  England's  First  Fruits,  p.  12. 


WOLVES  AND  BEARS  IN  THE   WOODS.  9 

and  sometimes  as  New  Cambridge,  became  an  independent 
township  under  name  of  Newtown.  The  Lexington  area  was 
known  as  "  Cambridge  Farms,"  but  the  founding  of  a  church 
there  in  1696  was  the  preliminary  to  separation,  and  in  1713 
Cambridge  Farms  became  a  distinct  town  by  the  name  of 
Lexington. 

In  1754,  the  boundary  between  Cambridge  and  Watertown 
was  carried  westward  about  half  a  mile  from  its  former  posi- 
tion at  or  near  Sparks  Street,  thus  adding  to  Cambridge  some 
of  its  most  valuable  area  for  dwellings.  Between  1802  and 
1820,  other  desirable  acquisitions,  including  the  Norton  estate, 
were  acquired  from  that  part  of  Charlestown  which  is  now 
Somerville. 

After  1732,  Menotomy  was  the  Second  Parish  of  Cambridge, 
until  1807,  when  it  was  incorporated  a  distinct  town  under  the 
clumsy  title  of  West  Cambridge,  for  which  the  name  Arlington 
was  substituted  in  1867. 

After  1779,  the  territory  remaining  on  the  south  side  of 
Charles  River  was  known  as  the  Third  Parish,  or  Little  Cam- 
bridge, until  1807,  when  it  became  a  separate  town  under  the 
name  of  Brighton.     In  1873,  Brighton  was  annexed  to  Boston. 

It  was  in  the  natural  course  of  things  that  these  outlying 
districts  should  with  increase  of  population  become  organized 
at  first  into  independent  parishes  and  afterward  into  separate 
towns.  In  1650,  they  were  little  else  but  wilderness.  The 
palisades  were  needed  to  protect  Cambridge  from  wild  beasts 
much  more  than  from  any  human  foes.  On  February  13,  1665, 
we  find  the  constables  ordered  "  to  allow  Justinian  Holden  ten 
shillings  towards  a  wolf,  killed  partly  in  Watertowne  and  partly 
in  this."  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  on  just  what  principle 
the  locality  of  that  brute's  death  was  divided.  In  1690,  the 
town  treasurer  allows  £1  per  wolf  for  52  wolves  killed  by  Eng- 
lishmen, but  an  Indian  for  the  same  service  gets  only  half 
price.  In  1696,  the  reward  for  killing  76  wolves  was  13s.  4c?.  per 
head.  Bears  also  roamed  in  the  woods,  and  persons  were  some- 
times killed  by  them,  but  the  appearance  of  a  bear  in  1754  in 
what  is  now  East  Cambridge  was  remarked  upon  as  extraordi- 
nary. 

The  nearest  Indian  tribe  dwelt  to  the  west  of  Mystic  Pond, 
and  was  governed  by  a  squaw  sachem.  The  land  occupied  by 
Cambridge  was  bought  of  this  tribe,  apparently  for  .£10  beside 


10  THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

an  annual  present  of  a  coat  to  the  squaw  sachem  during  her 
lifetime.  The  relations  between  white  men  and  red  men  were 
friendly.  In  1644,  these  Mystic  Indians  voluntarily  put  them- 
selves under  the  protection  and  jurisdiction  of  the  English 
government  at  Boston.  Eliot's  first  sermon  to  the  Indians  was 
preached  in  1646  at  Nonantum,  south  of  Charles  River,  and 
at  that  time  within  the  limits  of  Cambridge.  More  than  1000 
Indians  in  the  country  between  Boston  and  Worcester  came  to 
profess  Christianity,  and  it  was  hoped  that  Harvard  College 
couW  be  used  effectively  in  civilizing  them.  But  Harvard  had 
only  one  Indian  graduate,  Caleb  Cheeshahteaumuck,  who  re- 
ceived his  degree  in  1665  and  died  the  next  year.  In  the  terri- 
ble crisis  of  King  Philip's  War  some  of  the  "  praying  Indians  " 
found  the  ties  of  blood  stronger  than  those  of  religion,  and  a 
fierce  popular  distrust  was  aroused  against  them.  In  the  early 
spring  of  1676,  there  was  a  feeling  of  alarm  in  Cambridge 
lest  the  town  should  be  attacked,  and  timber  was  gathered 
for  strengthening  the  fortifications,  which  had  suffered  from 
neglect ;  but  the  panic  soon  subsided,  and  after  that  year  such 
dangers  were  removed  to  an  ever  receding  frontier. 

The  settlers  of  New  England  dreaded  heresy  far  more  than 
they  dreaded  Indians,  and  in  1646  a  synod  of  delegates  from 
the  colonies  of  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New 
Haven  was  assembled  at  Cambridge,  in  order  to  define  their 
creed  and  agree  upon  a  system  of  church  government.  The 
work  of  the  synod  was  finished  in  1^48.  The  Westminster 
Assembly's  creed  was  adopted,  as  also  a  "  platform  of  church 
discipline,"  known  as  the  Cambridge  Platform,  upon  which  all 
the  Congregational  churches  of  New  England  were  able  to 
stand  for  the  next  four  generations. 

While  the  synod  was  in  session  the  first  permanent  school- 
house  was  built,  on  the  west  side  of  Holyoke  Street,  where  it 
stood  until  1769  ;  for  nearly  another  century  its  site  was  occu- 
pied by  the  printing-press  long  since  famous  as  the  University 
Press.  The  parsonage  was  built  in  1670,  on  the  north  side  of 
Harvard  Street,  with  a  glebe  of  about  four  acres  attached  to  it. 
In  1680,  the  number  of  ratable  polls  was  returned  as  169,  which 
indicates  a  population  of  about  850  souls  in  Cambridge.  Their 
annual  allowance  for  the  parson  was  about  X51  in  cash  and 
<£78  in  provisions,  besides  20  loads  of  firewood  and  the  use  of 
house  and  land.     The  schoolmaster  was  paid  about  £20  a  year. 


BELCHER'S  FIRST  ORDINARY.  11 

In  thus  mentioning  schoolhouse  and  parsonage,  one  nearly 
completes  the  outline  picture  of  the  little  seventeenth-century 
town.  But  one  other  building,  of  high  consideration  and  im- 
portance, calls  for  mention,  to  wit,  the  village  ale-house.  Our 
Puritan  forefathers  did  not  frown  upon  such  good  cheer  as  was 
there  provided,  but  they  took  care  that  it  should  be  dispensed 
by  discreet  and  responsible  persons.  An  innkeeper  in  those 
days  must  be  a  man  of  approved  character,  and  the  position 
was  most  respectable.  We  find  that  in  1652  "  the  townsmen 
do  grant  liberty  to  Andrew  Belcher  to  sell  beer  and  bread,  for 
entertainment  of  strangers  and  the  good  of  the  town."  The 
wife  of  this  Andrew  Belcher  was  sister  of  Thomas  Danforth, 
the  deputy-governor ;  their  son,  who  also  became  mine  host,  was 
a  member  of  the  Council,  and  their  grandson  was  Jonathan 
Belcher,  royal  governor  of  Massachusetts  and  of  New  Jersey. 
In  1671,  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Mount  Auburn  and  Boyl- 
ston  streets,  the  first  Belcher  opened  the  famous  Blue  Anchor 
Tavern,  which  remained  on  that  spot  until  1737,  when  its  sign 
was  transferred  to  a  more  commodious  house  on  the  west  side 
of  Boylston  Street,  nearly  opposite  the  recent  site  of  the  post- 
office.  In  a  parlor  of  the  Blue  Anchor,  the  selectmen  of 
Cambridge  used  to  hold  their  meetings,  in  which  the  carking 
cares  of  public  business  were  pleasantly  assuaged  with  cool 
punch  in  the  summer  months  and  fragrant  flip  in  winter. 

The  site  of  the  worthy  Belcher's  first  ordinary,  before  the 
Blue  Anchor  days,  seems  not  to  be  known ;  and  the  more  is 
the  pity,  for  there  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  the  regicide 
judges,  William  Goffe  and  his  father-in-law  Whalley,  must  at 
some  time  have  found  entertainment.  From  their  arrival  on 
the  27th  of  July,  1660,  these  men  lived  in  Cambridge,  without 
any  attempt  at  concealment,  until  the  26th  of  the  following 
February,  when  they  deemed  it  prudent  to  retire  to  New 
Haven. 

Tlie  regicides,  like  other  visitors  to  Cambridge  in  those  days, 
are  likely  to  have  been  impressed  with  its  tidy  and  comfortable 
appearance.  In  the  tavern  talk  to  which  they  listened,  they 
may  have  heard  that  witchcraft,  that  torment  of  the  Old  World, 
had  come  to  plague  the  New.  For  over  in  Charlestown  a  few 
years  ago  Margaret  Jones  had  cured  sick  people  without  resort 
to  bleeding  or  emetics,  and  when  she  was  hanged  for  these 
diabolical  practices,  at  the  moment  her  soul  quit  the  body  there 


12  THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

was  a  gale  in  Connecticut  that  blew  down  trees.  Then  there 
was  a  Cambridge  woman  by  the  name  of  Kendall,  who  picked 
up  the  child  of  Goodman  Jennison,  of  Watertown,  and  kissed 
and  fondled  it,  and  a  few  hours  afterward  the  child  grew  pale 
and  died;  wherefore,  as  was  natural,  the  witch  Kendall  was 
hanged  on  Gallows  Lot. 

Another  topic  for  the  Puritan  ale-house  would  be  the  "  damna- 
ble heresy  "  for  which  Mr.  Henry  Dunster,  President  of  Har- 
vard College,  was  censured  by  the  magistrates  and  dismissed 
from  office  in  1655.  This  shameless  Dunster  had  publicly 
denounced  the  practice  of  infant  baptism  as  unscriptural.  In 
spite  of  august  synods,  in  spite  of  the  "  vigilancy "  of  Mr. 
Shepard  and  other  learned  parsons,  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
the  serpent  of  heresy  out  of  this  New  World  Eden.  Had  not 
those  froward  Quakers  persisted  in  leaving  Rhode  Island,  where 
they  were  hospitably  treated,  and  coming  to  Boston,  where  they 
were  not  wanted  ?  There  was  Mary  Dyer,  who  had  lately  been 
hanged  on  Boston  Common  because  she  would  not  go  away  when 
told  to ;  and  then  came  Elizabeth  Horton  to  disturb  the  peace 
of  Cambridge  by  crying  through  the  streets  that  the  Lord  was 
coming  with  fire  and  sword  to  judge  his  people,  nor  would  she 
desist  till  she  was  flogged  out  of  town  at  the  cart's  tail.  Still 
worse :  there  was  Benanuel  Bowers,  gentleman  and  land-owner 
(up  north,  near  the  Charlestown  line),  whom  no  threats  could 
restrain  from  declaring  himself  a  Baptist,  and  who  for  giving  a 
glass  of  milk  to  starving  Elizabeth  Horton  was  fined  £5.  This 
bold  Benanuel  himself  turned  Quaker,  and  was  for  twenty  years 
a  thorn  in  the  orthodox  flesh  of  our  little  town.  Over  and  over 
again  he  was  fined  20.s.  for  staying  away  from  church,  and  now 
and  then  for  entertaining  Quakers  at  his  house,  X4  and  costs. 
In  1677,  for  refusing  to  pay  his  fine,  he  was  thrown  into  jail 
and  kept  there  for  more  than  a  year.  He  solaced  himself  by 
writing  verses,  of  which  the  following  are  a  specimen,  and 
sending  them  by  his  wife  to  Thomas  Danforth,  one  of  the 
magistrates :  — 

"  It  is  nigh  hard  this  fifteene  years  since  first  oure  war  begun 
And  yet  the  feild  I  have  not  lost  nor  thou  the  conquest  wunn 
Against  thy  power  I  have  ingaged  which  of  us  twoo  shall  conquer 
I  am  resolvd  if  God  assist  to  put  it  to  the  venter 
Both  my  person  and  estate  for  truth  Isle  sacrafise 
And  all  I  have  He  leave  at  stake  He  venter  winn  or  loose,"  etc. 


BENANUEL    BOWERS.  13 

For  these  audacious  sentiments  Mr.  Bowers  was  sentenced  to 
pay  X5,  or  take  twenty  stripes.  A  few  weeks  later,  in  the  church 
one  Sunday  morning  just  after  the  benediction,  we  see  him 
jumping  up  on  the  pew  seat  and  haranguing  the  people  with  his 
tale  of  wrongs,  despite  the  minister's  angry  protests,  until  pres- 
ently the  constables  come  in  and  drag  the  irrepressible  Benanuel 
out  of  the  sacred  edifice.  Such  scenes  were  witnessed  in  Har- 
vard Square  two  centuries  ago.  May  all  of  us  who  hate  oppres- 
sion, and  love  independence  of  spirit,  do  honor  to  the  memory 
of  sturdy  Benanuel  Bowers. 

In  that  same  meetiufj-house  in  1745  did  George  Whitefield's 
admirers  wish  to  have  him  invited  to  preach,  but  the  minister, 
Mr.  Appleton,  would  in  no  wise  give  consent ;  so  Whitefield 
spoke  in  the  open  air  to  a  crowd  that  covered  the  Common. 
This  preaching  marked  the  downfall  of  the  era  of  Puritan 
theocracy;  and  nothing  more  was  needed  to  emphasize  and 
accentuate  that  downfall  than  the  introduction  of  the  Church 
of  England  into  Cambridge.  Our  story  of  the  Beginnings  of 
Cambridge  may  fitly  close  with  the  founding  of  Christ  Church, 
hard  by  God's  Acre,  in  1759.  A  century  after  its  founding 
there  was  hung  in  its  belfry  a  chime  of  bells,  and  for  many  a 
year  to  come  may  their  cheerful  music 

"  Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 

The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be." 


CAMBRIDGE  TOWN,  1750-1846. 

By  ANDREW  McFARLAND  DAVIS. 

The  period  in  the  history  of  Cambridge  which  we  are  about 
to  consider  naturally  divides  itself  into  two  portions,  the  line  of 
separation  between  which  is  furnished  by  the  Revolution.  The 
marked  differences  in  the  career  of  the  town,  caused  by  its 
change  from  a  township  in  the  Royal  Province  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  to  one  of  the  fundamental  parts  which  constituted  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  would  attract  the  attention  of  the  most  casual 
observer.  Geographically  it  had  already  been  greatly  reduced 
in  area.  During  the  period  which  we  are  considering  it  was  to 
be  still  further  curtailed  by  the  incorporation  of  Brighton  and 
West  Cambridge  as  separate  townships,  while  as  a  slight  com- 
pensation the  area  along  the  river  west  of  Sparks  Street  was 
to  be  taken  from  Watertown  and  added  to  the  jurisdiction  of 
Cambridge. 

As  we  first  view  the  town  in  1750,  there  is  much  that  is  pic- 
turesque in  the  placid  life  of  its  inhabitants,  who  numbered 
perhaps  1500,  and  who  were  settled  mainly  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  college.  The  outlying  settlement  at  Menotomy 
had  already  taken  its  first  step  towards  separate  life  as  a  town- 
ship. It  had  been  incorporated  as  a  precinct,  and  a  church 
had  been  regularly  organized  there.  The  interest  taken  by 
the  inhabitants  of  the  body  of  the  town,  in  the  struggle  of 
the  residents  south  of  the  Charles  River  for  similar  privileges, 
was  far  greater  during  the  years  of  political  inaction  which  pre- 
ceded the  attempts  of  Great  Britain  to  tax  the  colonies  than 
that  produced  by  the  slight  participation  of  the  town  in  the 
prolonged  contest  between  the  colonies  and  the  French  and 
Indians.  As  early  as  1744,  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  secure 
the  necessary  legislation  for  the  establishment  of  a  separate  par- 
ish south  of  the  Charles.  Unsuccessful  at  that  time,  the  peti- 
tioners renewed  the  contest  in  1748,  only  to  be  defeated.     In 


THE  STONE  POWDER-HOUSE.  15 

the  discussion  that  then  took  place,  the  members  of  the  First 
Parish  claimed  that  if  the  petition  were  allowed,  compensation 
should  be  made  by  adding  to  the  parish  a  number  of  families 
residing  in  Charlestown  and  Watertown,  who  had  for  years 
attended  public  worship  in  Cambridge. 

In  December,  1753,  the  question  was  again  presented  to  the 
General  Court,  and  again  the  petition  for  a  separate  precinct 
was  dismissed.  A  petition  made  at  the  same  time  by  the  First 
Parish  for  the  annexation  to  Cambridge  of  that  portion  of 
Watertown  west  of  what  we  now  know  as  Sparks  Street,  and 
south  of  Vassall  Lane,  extending  to  Fresh  Pond,  prevailed.  The 
committee  to  whom  it  was  referred  reported,  April  17,  1754, 
in  its  favor,  and  the  next  day  an  order  to  that  effect  was  passed 
by  the  Assembly. 

In  1758,  the  inhabitants  south  of  Charles  River  again  peti- 
tioned for  a  separate  precinct.  Consideration  of  this  petition 
was  postponed  from  time  to  time,  but  in  March,  1760,  a  com- 
mittee reported,  recommending  practically  that  it  be  granted, 
and  that  as  a  compensation,  a  part  of  the  territory  of  Charles- 
town  should  be  annexed  to  the  First  Parish.  Action  on  this 
report  was  deferred  until  April  17, 1761,  when  it  was  submitted, 
but  not  adopted.  A  compromise  measure  offered  the  next  day 
met  a  better  .fate.  The  residents  south  of  the  Charles  did 
not  secure  their  separate  autonomy,  but  an  annual  allowance  of 
£52  was  granted  them  for  the  support  of  preaching  in  their 
meeting-house,  and  they  were  exempted  from  paying  their  pro- 
portion for  the  new  meeting-house  of  the  First  Parish.  A 
strip  of  land  in  Charlestown  was  at  the  same  time  annexed 
to  the  First  Parish.  This  extended  from  the  salt-water  creek 
adjoining  Lieutenant-Governor  Phips's  farm  up  to  the  Stone 
Powder-House,  and  thence  to  the  Medford  line.  Unfortunately 
for  Cambridge  this  annexed  territory  was  not  to  become  an 
integral  part  of  the  First  Parish  unless  the  inhabitants  thereof 
should  fail  within  two  months  to  give  security  to  the  treasurer 
of  the  parish  for  the  annual  payment  of  their  proportion  of  the 
charges  of  maintaining  public  worship  in  the  parish,  so  long  as 
they  should  attend  worship  there.  The  threat  to  these  Charles- 
town people  of  being  permanently  attached  to  Cambridge,  unless 
they  should  settle  with  the  treasurer  of  the  First  Parish,  appar- 
ently served  its  purpose,  and  this  district  remained  a  part  of 
Charlestown. 


16  CAMBRIDGE  TOWN,  1750-1846. 

The  compromise  with  the  inhabitants  south  of  the  river 
resulted  in  a  truce,  which  lasted  for  sixteen  years,  but  in  1774 
they  renewed  their  efforts  for  separation.  The  General  Court, 
to  which  the  petition  was  presented,  was  adjourned  by  General 
Gage  to  Salem  before  it  was  considered,  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  action  could  have  been  had  upon  it  during  the 
excitement  of  the  brief  session  at  that  place. 

In  1778,  a  new  petition  to  the  same  effect  was  presented. 
This  was  met  by  a  counter-petition  presented  by  families  living 
on  the  south  side  of  the  river,  within  easy  distance  of  the  First 
Parish  Church,  who  protested  against  being  compelled  to  sever 
their  connection  with  that  organization.  On  the  first  of  May  a 
bill  was  passed  incorporating  the  precinct,  but  exempting  from 
ministerial  taxation  therein  certain  of  the  protestants.  Thus 
was  this  long  protracted  struggle  concluded  by  the  triumph  of 
the  separatists.  Begun  at  a  period  when  it  was  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  the  townspeople  and  was  the  all-absorbing  topic 
of  local  politics,  it  was  continued  during  the  passage  of  events 
which  completely  overshadowed  it,  and  was  concluded  at  a  time 
when  all  thoughts  were  concentrated  upon  the  impending  strug- 
gle with  the  Mother  Country.  A  separate  church  was  founded 
in  the  precinct  in  1783,  and  the  parish  was  incorporated  as  the 
town  of  Brighton,  February  24,  1807.  Three  days  thereafter 
West  Cambridge  was  incorporated  as  an  independent  town- 
ship. The  act  under  which  this  last  was  accomplished  was  not, 
however,  to  take  effect  until  June  1,  1807. 

The  body  of  the  town,  as  the  central  settlement  was  formerly 
termed,  was  in  1750  centred  upon  that  part  of  the  Common  now 
called  Harvard  Square.  Here  were  the  church  and  the  court- 
house standing  side  by  side  in  open  ground,  part  of  which  is  now 
to  be  found  in  the  square  itself  and  the  rest  within  the  college 
yard.  These  buildings  could  either  of  them  be  used  for  town 
meetings,  and  Cambridge  was  therefore  for  a  long  while  ex- 
empted from  the  necessity  of  erecting  a  separate  town-house. 
The  jail  stood  on  the  northerly  side  of  Winthrop  Street,  between 
Winthrop  Square  and  Eliot  Street.  In  1757,  the  county 
built  a  new  court-house  on  the  lot  where  Lyceum  Hall  now 
stands,  and  this  structure  was  occupied  for  county  purposes 
until  the  removal  of  the  courts  and  records  to  East  Cambridge 
in  1816,  when  both  it  and  the  Winthrop  Street  jail  were  aban- 
doned. The  burial  ground  adjoining  the  present  First  Parish 
Church  was  in  1750  the  town  burial  ground. 


A  NEW  MEETING-HOUSE.  17 

Provision  for  the  support  of  the  poor  in  private  families  was 
made  in  early  times  out  of  the  town  rate,  and  it  was  not  until 
1779  that  an  estate  was  secured  by  the  town  for  a  poorhouse. 
This  property,  which  stood  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Brighton 
and  South  streets,  was  sold  in  1786,  and  about  five  acres  lying 
at  the  southwest  corner  of  North  Avenue  and  Cedar  Street  were 
purchased.  A  building  called  The  Poor's  House  was  erected 
thereon. 

A  new  meeting-house  for  the  First  Parish,  nearly  on  the  site 
of  the  one  then  in  being,  was  raised  November  17,  1756.  The 
first  service  was  held  in  it  July  24, 1757.  The  college  con- 
tributed one  seventh  of  the  cost  of  its  erection,  and  also,  in 
consideration  of  the  acceptance  of  certain  conditions  which  it 
imposed  relative  to  the  interior  construction,  it  relinquished  to 
the  parish  a  strip  of  land  in  order  that  the  building  might  be 
set  further  back  from  the  street  than  the  site  of  the  former 
house.  It  was  in  this  church  that  Washington  attended  divine 
service  when  in  Cambridge  at  the  head  of  the  army.  It  was 
here  that  the  convention  to  frame  a  constitution  for  Massa- 
chusetts held  its  sessions  in  1779.  It  was  here  that  Lafayette 
was  received  in  1824,  and  here  also,  for  three  quarters  of  a 
century,  the  Commencement  and  other  public  exercises  of  the 
college  were  held. 

The  distribution  of  the  population  in  the  three  parishes  in 
1750  is  largely  a  matter  for  conjecture.  We  have,  however, 
the  means  of  forming  an  approximate  opinion.  In  1765,  the  in- 
habitants numbered  1571.  Eleven  years  later,  there  were  1586. 
There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  in  1750  the  population  was 
in  the  neighborhood  of  1500,  of  whom  about  one  half  lived  in 
the  body  of  the  town,  one  third  in  Menotomy,  and  one  sixth 
south  of  the  Charles.  Manufactures  were  unknown.  Laborers 
found  their  w^ay  to  their  work  without  the  aid  of  a  chorus  of 
dissonant  whistles,  nor  were  there  other  means  at  hand  than 
the  church-bell  to  rouse  distant  slumberers  in  case  of  fire  at 
night.  The  bellowing  of  some  sleep-destroying  instrument  was 
far  more  needed  then  than  now,  for  Cambridge  was  dependent 
then  upon  the  industry  and  perseverance  of  her  citizens  at  large 
for  checking  the  progress  of  her  fires.  The  first  trace  which 
Mr.  Paige  finds  of  the  organization  of  a  fire  company  and  the 
purchase  of  a  fire  engine  was  in  1803.  Yet  in  the  account  of 
the  burning  of  Harvard  Hall  in  January,  1764,  we  learn  that 


18  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

Stoughton  (the  first  of  that  name)  and  Massachusetts  and  Hol- 
lis  were  saved  through  the  exertions  of  citizens,  members  of  the 
General  Court,  and  even  of  the  governor  himself,  who,  "  not- 
withstanding the  extreme  rigor  of  the  season,  exerted  themselves 
in  supplying  the  town-engine  with  water,  which  they  were 
obliged  to  fetch  at  last  from  a  distance,  two  of  the  College 
pumps  being  then  rendered  useless."  When  was  this  engine 
purchased  which  is  here  alluded  to  as  the  town-engine  ?  If  we 
could  ascertain,  we  could  fix  the  birth  of  our  fire  department. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  engine  belonging  to  Henry  Vassall,  which  in 
1755  he  offered  for  the  use  of  the  town  upon  certain  conditions. 
The  town  did  not  then  accept  the  offer.  Whether  we  have  here 
a  clue  which  will  add  to  the  years  claimed  for  the  life  of  our  fire 
department  or  not,  the  scene  presented  to  our  view,  of  citizens 
and  members  of  the  provincial  government,  working  side  by 
side,  passing  buckets  from  the  neighboring  wells,  in  their  efforts 
to  prevent  the  conflagration  from  spreading  to  the  other  col- 
lege buildings,  is  of  great  interest.  The  sight  was  to  them  a 
sad  one.  The  collection  of  books  which  formed  the  library  of 
the  college,  the  philosophical  instruments,  the  gifts  of  rare  and 
curious  objects,  and  the  portraits  which  had  been  given  to  the 
college,  fed  the  flames  which  the  citizens  were  seeking  to  hold 
in  check.  Our  interest  in  this  scene  is  not  confined  to  the 
lines  of  men  passing  water  in  buckets  from  distant  wells  to  feed 
the  feeble  stream  of  the  little  tub  which  was  at  work  trying  to 
prevent  the  progress  of  the  conflagration.  The  contrast  with 
the  rapid  throbs  of  the  powerful  engines  of  to-day,  which  make 
the  air  palpitate  for  a  mile  from  the  fire  where  they  are  at  work, 
is  striking,  but  there  is  another  feature  which  makes  this  scene 
memorable.  Its  position  in  time  is  at  the  end  of  the  days  of 
pastoral  simplicity  in  Cambridge.  It  was  not  only  the  last 
occasion  when  royal  officers  and  prominent  citizens  actually 
worked  together  with  a  common  impulse,  but  it  was  close  to  the 
time  when  such  cooperation  was  scarcely  possible  upon  any 
point.  The  era  of  political  activity  was  about  to  begin.  The 
attention  of  the  people  of  Cambridge  was  to  be  devoted  to  other 
topics  than  the  protection  of  the  First  Parish.  The  arousing  of 
that  sentiment  which  led  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  accomplished  in  Massachusetts  through  the  town  organiza- 
tions. In  this  work  Cambridge,  as  a  town,  lent  a  hand,  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  proceeding  in  the  preliminary  struggle  which 


THE    STAMP  ACT.  19 

is  not  illustrated  by  some  vote  recorded  by  the  Cambridge  town 
clerk. 

The  serenity  of  the  town  was  but  slightly  disturbed  by  the 
indignation  aroused  by  the  arbitrary  legislation  of  Parliament 
for  the  suppression  of  the  Land  Bank.  Its  interests  were  not 
seriously  impaired  by  the  enforcement  of  the  navigation  acts. 
There  is  no  conspicuous  record  of  the  use  of  writs  of  assist- 
ance within  its  borders ;  but  from  the  time  that  the  anger  of 
the  people  of  the  province  had  determined  them  to  oppose 
the  Stamp  Act,  the  record  of  the  citizens  of  the  town  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  royal  measures  for  raising  revenue  and  enforcing 
parliamentary  acts  was  bold  and  unyielding. 

The  outbreak  in  Boston,  which  resulted  in  the  destruction  of 
Hutchinson's  house,  was  deplored  by  the  inhabitants  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  they  voted  in  town  meeting  on  the  29th  of  August, 
1765,  that  they  abhorred  and  detested  such  proceedings,  and 
would  use  their  utmost  endeavors  to  protect  the  dwelling-houses 
and  property  of  residents  of  Cambridge  from  such  outrages. 
While  they  were  thus  outspoken  in  condemnation  of  the  Bos- 
ton mob,  they  were  not  ready  to  have  the  loss  charged  to  the 
province,  and  instructed  their  representatives  on  the  14th  of 
October  to  vote  against  any  such  proceeding.  From  this  opin- 
ion, after  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  they  receded,  and  at  a 
town  meeting  in  October,  1766,  instructed  their  representatives 
to  favor  compensation  to  the  sufferers  from  the  public  treasury. 
The  Stamp  Act  itseK  they  declared  by  a  vote  in  the  town  meet- 
ing in  October,  1765,  to  be  an  infraction  of  their  rights,  and 
they  recommended  their  representatives  to  endeavor  to  secure 
its  repeal,  and  to  do  nothing  which  shoiJd  aid  its  operation. 

In  May,  1766,  the  representatives  were  instructed  not  to 
give  their  suffrage  to  office-holders,  the  purpose  being  to  exclude 
from  the  council  certain  crown  officers  who  were  supposed  to 
be  too  subservient  to  the  royal  interests.  Deeming  it  important 
that  the  public  should  know  what  was  under  discussion  in  the 
Assembly,  and  in  general  what  took  place  there,  the  represen- 
tatives were  instructed  to  endeavor  to  have  a  gallery  constructed 
in  the  room  where  they  were  in  the  habit  of  meeting,  to  which 
the  public  should  be  admitted. 

In  1767,  the  Townshend  duties  were  laid  by  Parliament. 
The  Massachusetts  representatives  sought  cooperation  both  in 
England  and  in  this  country  for  their  repeal.     In  May,  1768, 


so  CAMBRIDGE  TOWN,  1750-1846. 

the  governor  required  the  House  of  Representatives  to  repeal 
the  resolution  by  which  they  had  appealed  to  the  other  colo- 
nies for  aid  in  this  behalf,  and  when  this  was  refused,  he 
dissolved  the  General  Court.  Rumors  followed  this  act  that 
more  soldiers  were  to  be  stationed  at  Boston.  A  town  meeting 
was  thereupon  held  in  that  place  September  12,  1768,  at  which 
the  inhabitants  voted  to  request  the  governor  to  convene  the 
General  Court,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  ascertain 
from  him  whether  he  expected  the  arrival  of  any  more  troops. 
The  governor  declared  himself  unable  under  his  instructions  to 
call  a  General  Court.  As  to  the  troops,  he  said  that  his  infor- 
mation that  they  might  be  expected  came  from  private  sources, 
and  not  from  any  official  announcement.  It  was  thereupon 
voted  to  call  a  convention  of  the  several  towns  of  the  province, 
to  be  held  September  22,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  to  consult  as  to 
the  measures  for  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  province.  To 
this  convention  Cambridge  sent  two  delegates.  They  were  not 
chosen,  however,  until  September  29. 

In  May,  1769,  the  governor  once  more  convened  the  General 
Court,  but  they,  immediately  after  organization,  remonstrated 
with  him  for  compelling  them  to  hold  their  sessions  in  a  place 
where  a  standing  army  was  posted,  and  where  there  was  a  mili- 
tary guard  with  cannon  pointed  at  the  very  door  of  the  State- 
House,  in  which  the  session  was  being  held.  The  governor 
replied  that  the  only  remedy  at  his  command  was  to  remove 
the  General  Court  to  a  place  where  these  objections  would  not 
apply,  and  he  accordingly  adjourned  the  session  to  Harvard 
College,  in  Cambridge. 

On  the  evening  of  March  5,  1770,  occurred  the  deplorable 
event  generally  spoken  of  as  the  Boston  Massacre.  In  this 
affair  Cambridge  was  not  called  upon  to  mourn  the  loss  of  any 
of  her  citizens,  but  from  the  Boston  Records  we  learn  that  a 
message  of  sympathy  was  sent,  and  an  offer  of  assistance  if 
occasion  should  require. 

In  November,  1772,  the  famous  Committee  of  Correspond- 
ence was  organized  for  the  purpose  of  stating  the  rights  and 
grievances  of  the  colonists.  The  circular  letter  and  the  pam- 
phlet issued  by  the  Boston  committee  were  duly  read  at  a  town 
meeting  held  in  Cambridge,  December  14,  and  a  committee  was 
appointed  on  the  part  of  Cambridge,  which  was  instructed  to 
acquaint  the  Boston  committee  that  Cambridge  would  heartily 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BOSTON.  21 

concur  in  all  salutary,  proper,  and  constitutional  measures  for 
the  redress  of  the  intolerable  grievances  which  threatened,  and 
which,  if  continued,  would  overthrow  the  happy  civil  constitu- 
tion of  the  province.  The  committee  was  also  instructed  to 
take  under  consideration  the  infringements  upon  the  rights  of 
the  people  which  were  complained  of,  and  to  report  at  an  ad- 
joui-nment  of  the  meeting.  It  was  also  to  prepare  instructions 
to  the  Cambridge  representatives.  After  a  recess  of  a  few 
minutes  this  committee  submitted  a  report,  in  which  a  long  and 
carefully  prepared  review  of  the  situation  prefaced  instructions 
to  the  representative  to  use  his  greatest  influence  at  the  next 
session  of  the  General  Court  for  a  speedy  redress  of  all  griev- 
ances. He  was  also  recommended  to  ascertain  if  the  salaries  of 
the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  were  adequate,  and  if  he  found 
that  they  were  not,  he  was  to  use  his  best  endeavors  to  have 
them  increased  to  an  amount  suitable  for  the  position.  The 
meeting  then  adjourned  for  three  weeks.  On  the  28th  of 
December,  the  committee  placed  itself  in  correspondence  with 
the  Boston  committee,  reporting  the  proceedings  of  the  Cam- 
bridge meeting,  and  expressing  full  sympathy  with  the  action 
taken  by  the  Boston  committee.  On  the  4th  of  January,  1773, 
the  meeting  was  reconvened,  and  the  committee  then  reported 
that  the  rights  of  the  colonists  were  properly  stated  by  the 
Boston  committee,  and  that  the  alleged  infringements  and  viola- 
tions were  notorious  facts.  They  reported  a  resolve  condemning 
the  attempt  to  make  the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  de- 
pendent upon  the  Crown,  by  giving  them  fixed  stipends,  inde- 
pendent of  the  people. 

The  attempt  to  collect  a  duty  on  tea  led  to  the  agreement 
on  the  part  of  the  patriots  that  they  would  no  longer  use 
the  leaf.  This  duty  was  laid  by  Parliament  in  1773.  The 
dramatic  method  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  and 
vicinity  resisted  the  attempts  to  land  tea  in  that  place  marks 
a  conspicuous  point  in  the  attempts  of  the  colonists  to  resist  the 
ministry  in  their  efforts  to  raise  money  in  the  colonies  by  taxa- 
tion. At  a  town  meeting  held  in  Cambridge  November  26  of 
that  year,  which  was  described  in  the  records  as  a  "very  full  " 
meeting,  the  opposition  of  the  town  to  the  collection  of  this 
duty  was  set  forth  in  great  detail.  The  claim  of  Parliament  to 
tax  the  colonists  was  defined  to  be  a  claim  to  levy  contributions 
at  pleasure.     The  duty  on  tea  w^as,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people 


22  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

of  Cambridge,  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  tax.  The  appli- 
cation of  the  money  thus  raised  in  support  of  the  government 
would  tend  to  render  the  Assembly  useless.  Every  American 
should  resist  this  plan  of  the  ministers.  The  sending  of  the  tea 
here  by  the  East  India  Company,  subject  to  the  payment  of 
duties,  was  an  open  attempt  to  enforce  the  ministerial  plan,  and 
a  violent  attack  on  the  liberties  of  America.  Every  person  who 
should  aid,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  unloading,  receiving,  or 
vending  any  tea  subject  to  these  duties,  was  declared  to  be 
an  enemy  of  America.  The  factors  appointed  in  Boston  by  the 
East  India  Company,  who  had  been  requested  to  resign  this 
appointment,  but  who  had  refused  to  do  so,  had  by  this  conduct 
forfeited  all  right  to  the  respect  of  their  fellow-countiymen. 
For  this  reason  the  town  of  Cambridge  would  not  show  them 
respect,  but  would  view  them  as  enemies  of  their  country.  Any 
person  who  should  harbor  these  factors,  unless  they  should 
immediately  make  full  satisfaction  to  a  justly  incensed  people, 
was  declared  to  be  unfriendly  to  his  country.  Any  person  who 
should  import  tea,  subject  to  this  duty,  was  said  to  be  an  enemy 
to  be  treated  with  the  same  contempt  as  the  factors  of  the  East 
India  Company.  And  finally  it  was  resolved  "  That  this  town 
can  no  longer  stand  idle  spectators,  but  are  ready,  on  the  short- 
est notice,  to  join  with  the  town  of  Boston,  and  other  towns,  in 
any  measures  that  may  be  thought  proper,  to  deliver  ourselves 
and  posterity  from  slavery." 

On  the  evening  of  December  10, 1773,  occurred  the  far-famed 
incident  of  throwing  overboard  in  Boston  harbor  the  cargoes  of 
tea  which  had  been  forwarded  to  that  port  by  the  East  India 
Company.  Of  the  connection  of  Cambridge  men  with  this 
event  we  have  no  record,  but  the  effects  were  felt  throughout 
the  Province.  The  Boston  Port  Bill,  through  which  Parlia- 
ment sought  to  punish  Boston  for  the  destruction  of  the  tea, 
received  the  royal  assent  March  30,  1774.  The  act  took  effect 
elune  1,  1774,  and  for  the  time  being  the  commerce  of  Boston 
was  destroyed.  Cambridge  of  coui'se  suffered  from  this  pro- 
ceeding, but  on  the  28th  of  July  the  town  voted  that  the  Com- 
mittee of  Correspondence  should  be  a  committee  to  receive  and 
transmit  to  their  destination  gifts  for  the  relief  of  their  dis- 
tressed brethren  in  Boston. 

The  next  step  resorted  to  by  the  British  Parliament  for  bring- 
ing the  recalcitrant  colonists  into  line  was  the  passage  of  the 


POWDER  AND  BROKEN  GLASS.  23 

act  for  the  bettei*  regulation  of  the  Province  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay.  Among  other  changes  made  by  this  act,  it  was 
provided  that  the  Council  or  Court  of  Assistants  should  be 
appointed  by  his  Majesty  with  the  advice  of  the  Privy  Council. 
The  councilors  thus  appointed  were  termed  Mandamus  Coun- 
cilors. Among  them  were  three  Cambridge  men :  Thomas 
Oliver,  lieutenant-governor,  and  councilor  by  virtue  of  his 
office,  Samuel  Danforth,  and  Joseph  Lee.  The  change  in  the 
method  of  creating  the  board  was  but  one  among  many  which 
this  act  effected,  but  unfortunately  for  these  particular  gentle- 
men, the  offensive  nature  of  their  act  in  accepting  an  appoint- 
ment under  the  circumstances  was  brought  to  the  consideration 
of  their  fellow-citizens  at  a  period  of  intense  excitement.  It 
appeared  that  Major-General  Brattle,  of  Cambridge,  had  noti- 
fied General  Gage  that  the  Medford  selectmen  had  removed 
from  the  powder-house  in  Charlestown,  now  known  as  the 
Somerville  Powder-House,  a  stock  of  powder  belonging  to  the 
town,  thus  leaving  only  the  powder  which  belonged  to  the  prov- 
ince. On  receipt  of  this  information  Gage  sent  out  some  troops, 
and  brought  in  to  Boston  the  powder  from  the  powder-house, 
and  from  Cambridge  two  fieldpieces  which  had  been  sent  there 
for  Brattle's  regiment.  There  was  much  speculation  in  Boston 
when  the  march  of  these  troops  became  known,  as  to  their  desti- 
nation, and  word  was  sent  to  the  neighboring  towns  that  the 
expedition  was  under  way,  in  order  that  they  might  be  prepared 
for  action.  This  movement  took  place  on  Thursday,  Septem- 
ber 1.  The  same  evening  a  body  of  Cambridge  citizens  sur- 
rounded the  house  of  Jonathan  Sewall  at  the  westerly  corner  of 
Sparks  and  Brattle  streets,  who  was  attorney-general  and  also, 
under  the  new  plan,  judge  of  the  admiralty.  With  the  excep- 
tion that  a  few  panes  of  glass  were  destroyed,  nothing  came  of 
this  gathering  of  the  people.  The  next  day,  however,  several 
thousands  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  part  of  Middlesex  County 
gathered  around  the  court-house  in  that  portion  of  the  Common 
now  called  Harvard  Square.  To  them  Judge  Danforth  and 
Judge  Lee  each  made  an  address,  stating  their  determination 
not  to  serve  upon  the  new  Council  Board,  and  in  confirmation 
of  this  conclusion  each  of  them  submitted  in  writing  a  copy  of 
a  written  certificate  to  that  effect,  attested  by  the  clerk  of  the 
court.  The  high  sheriff  of  the  courts,  who  was  present,  sub- 
mitted a  certificate  in  similar  form,  to  the  effect  that  he  would 


24  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

not  execute  any  precepts  under  the  new  act  of  Parliament,  and 
that  he  would  recall  the  venires  which  he  had  already  sent  out. 
The  clerk  of  the  courts  of  Middlesex  engaged  to  do  no  one  thing 
in  obedience  to  the  new  act  of  Parliament. 

The  meeting  apparently  adjourned  from  the  Common  to  the 
residence  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Oliver,  on  the  westerly  side 
of  Elmwood  Avenue,  now  known  as  the  Lowell  house,  where 
the  lieutenant-governor  made  a  promise  of  a  similar  nature  over 
his  own  signature,  the  concluding  sentence  in  which  is,  "  My 
house  at  Cambridge  being  surrounded  by  about  four  thousand 
people,  in  compliance  with  their  command  I  sign  my  name,  — 
Thomas  Oliver." 

There  was  but  one  other  person  with  whom  the  people  in 
their  indignation  had  to  deal,  and  that  was  General  Brattle. 
He  had  apparently  taken  refuge  in  Boston,  and  from  that  place 
he  wrote  on  the  same  day  an  explanatory  and  apologetic  letter, 
in  which  he  spoke  of  threatenings  he  had  met,  his  banishment 
from  his  home,  and  the  search  of  his  house.  He  said  he  was 
sorry  for  what  had  taken  place,  and  hoped  that  he  might  be 
forgiven. 

It  requires  no  demonstration  to  show  that  this  was  one  of  the 
most  exciting  days  in  the  history  of  Cambridge.  The  temper  of 
the  people  was  incapable  of  being  misunderstood.  It  does  not 
appear  that  there  was  any  collision  with  the  troops,  nor  indeed 
could  there  have  been  any  reasonable  ground  for  opposing  the 
removal  of  the  powder  which  belonged  to  the  province.  It  is 
obvious,  however,  that  the  2d  of  September,  1774,  just  escaped 
the  historic  importance  of  the  19th  of  April  of  the  succeeding 
year. 

As  a  sequel  to  these  events,  the  town  held  a  meeting  October 
3,  1774,  and  instructed  the  representatives  whom  they  had 
chosen  for  the  General  Court,  which  was  to  fneet  at  Salem 
October  5,  to  act  only  with  the  council  which  had  been  chosen 
in  May  preceding.  They  were  also  authorized  to  represent  the 
town  in  a  Provincial  Congress,  and  either  as  members  of  the 
Assembly  or  as  members  of  the  Congress,  to  consult  with  their 
fellow-members  and  determine  what  was  most  proper  to  deliver 
America  from  the  iron  jaws  of  slavery.  This  was  of  course 
revolutionary.  The  council,  established  by  act  of  Parliament, 
was  deliberately  refused  recognition,  and  the  representatives 
were  authorized  to  represent  the  town,  in  a  body  whose  very 


PROVINCIAL   CONGRESSES.  25 

existence  would  be  a  blow  to  royal  authority.  That  Cambridge 
was  thoroughly  in  earnest  in  the  stand  thus  taken,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  defend  its  position,  is  shown  by  a  vote  at  the  same 
meeting  authorizing  the  selectmen  to  procure  a  carriage  for  the 
cannon  belonging  to  the  town,  to  purchase  another  cannon,  and 
to  furnish  jjowder  and  balls  for  both. 

The  forethought  of  the  town  in  providing  the  representa- 
tives to  the  General  Court  with  alternative  instructions  to  act 
as  delegates  to  a  Provincial  Congress  was  justified  by  the  event. 
Before  the  time  arrived  for  the  assemblage  of  the  General  Court, 
Gage  prorogued  that  body,  and  the  representatives,  who  reported 
at  Salem,  organized  as  a  Provincial  Congress.  In  the  course 
of  a  few  days  they  adjourned  to  Concord,  and  after  a  short 
session  in  that  place  adjourned  to  Cambridge,  where  they  met 
October  17,  and  proceeded  with  their  deliberations.  Among 
other  acts  of  the  court  at  this  session  was  the  appointment 
of  a  Receiver-General  of  the  province,  to  whom  collectors  were 
required  to  pay  the  province  taxes.  On  the  28th  of  November, 
the  town  voted  that  if  any  person  should  refuse  to  comply  with 
this  act  of  the  Provincial  Congress,  the  town  would  consider 
him  as  operating  with  the  enemies  of  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  this  injured  and  oppressed  people. 

The  second  Provincial  Congress  met  in  Cambridge,  on  the 
1st  of  February,  1775.  The  event  is  perhaps  worthy  of  record 
in  our  annals,  although  nothing  occurred  at  this  brief  session 
which  called  for  special  action  on  the  part  of  the  town.  It  was 
rumored  in  the  early  days  of  the  session  that  Gage  proposed  to 
march  to  Cambridge  at  the  head  of  his  troops  and  break  up  the 
session,  but  events  proved  that  it  was  only  rumor. 

The  period  of  discussion  was  now  over,  and  stirring  times  of 
action  were  near  at  hand.  The  opportunity  has  seldom  been 
furnished  a  town  to  write  its  own  history  so  completely  as  Cam- 
bridge has  through  the  record  of  the  votes  at  town  meeting 
which  has  just  been  reviewed.  Throughout  all  these  preliminary 
steps  in  opposition  to  the  assertion  of  parliamentary  power  over 
the  province  we  trace  the  action  of  the  town.  When  active 
military  events  supervene,  the  town  as  such  no  longer  com- 
mands our  attention,  but  our  sympathy  goes  forth  for  the  suf- 
fering of  some  individual  inhabitant,  or  our  pride  is  aroused  by 
the  heroic  performances  of  some  fellow-citizen. 

It  woidd  be  impracticable  in  this  sketch  to  narrate  in  detail 


26  CAMBRIDGE  TOWN,  1750-1846. 

the  events  that  occurred  in  Cambridge  on  the  19th  of  April, 
1775,  which  might  arouse  our  sympathy  and  stir  up  our  pride. 
This  work  has  been  performed  with  great  fidelity  by  the  his- 
torian of  Cambridge,  and  to  his  pages  readers  must  turn  if 
they  would  learn  the  particulars  of  what  our  citizens  did  and 
suffered  on  that  day.  It  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purposes  if 
we  note  that  the  path  of  the  British  troops,  both  going  to  and 
coming  from  Concord,  lay  through  our  territory.  Twenty-six 
lives  were  lost  within  the  boundaries  of  what  then  constituted 
Cambridge,  six  of  which  were  of  inhabitants  of  the  town.  The 
militia  who  followed  the  British  troops  in  their  retreat  were 
marched  to  Cambridge,  and  were  then  ordered  to  lie  on  their 
arms. 

For  eleven  months  from  that  time  Cambridge  was  occupied 
by  the  American  army.  The  college  buildings  were  made  use 
of  as  barracks.  The  library  and  apparatus  of  the  college  were 
first  removed  to  Andover,  and  then  to  Concord,  where  for  a  time 
instruction  was  given.  The  Episcopal  church  was  converted 
into  barracks,  and  many  private  houses  were  taken  for  the  same 
purpose,  or  for  hospitals.  The  headquarters  of  General  Ward 
were  in  the  house  which  stood  nearly  in  front  of  the  present 
Austin  Hall,  and  was  long  familiarly  known  as  the  Holmes 
House.  There  the  movement  was  planned  which  resulted  in  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  Cambridge  was  in  close  touch  with  that 
event,  but  the  story  of  the  battle  must  be  sought  in  Frothing- 
ham's  "  Siege  of  Boston."  The  details  concerning  the  life  and 
death  of  Colonel  Thomas  Gardner,  whom  Cambridge  was  called 
upon  to  mourn  that  day,  will  be  found  fully  set  forth  in  Paige's 
"Cambridge."  No  man  in  Cambridge  had  been  more  com- 
pletely identified  with  the  several  steps  taken  by  the  town  in 
protest  and  defiance  of  parliamentary  oppression.  No  man 
could  more  fittingly  have  exposed  his  life  in  defense  of  the 
local  government,  in  the  formation  of  which  he  had  assisted, 
and  of  which  he  had  from  the  beginning  been  a  part.  No  life 
that  was  lost  in  that  battle  better  conveys  the  lesson  of  de- 
votion to  principle  and  the  cheerful  surrender  of  life  in  its 
behalf. 

On  the  3d  of  July,  General  Washington  assumed  command 
of  the  army  in  Cambridge.  His  first  headquarters  were  in  the 
President's  House,  still  standing  in  the  college  yard,  on  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue,  and  sometimes  called  the  Wadsworth  House. 


INDEPENDENCE  FAVORED.  27 

After  a  few  days  tliey  were  transferred  to  the  Vassall  House 
on  Brattle  Street,  afterwards  called  the  Craigie  House,  but  now 
generally  spoken  of  as  the  Longfellow  House.  During  the 
progress  of  the  siege  of  Boston,  Cambridge  became  a  sort  of 
fortified  camp.  The  location  of  the  several  forts  and  the  line 
of  the  breastworks  have  been  preserved  in  maps  and  described 
by  historians.  Of  these  works,  one  alone  remains.  It  stands 
at  the  foot  of  Allston  Street.  In  1858,  it  was  restored  to  its 
original  condition,  and  the  entire  site  was  surrounded  with  a 
substantial  iron  fence.  Three  cannon,  the  gift  of  the  United 
States,  were  mounted  in  the  embrasures,  and  there  they  stand 
to-day,  perpetuating  the  memory  that  the  current  of  the  Charles 
was  once  navigable  even  for  hostile  vessels,  but  with  muzzles 
pointed  in  the  air  as  if  intolerant  of  the  pollution  of  the  stream. 
There  is  perhaps  a  suggestion  of  fatigue  and  indecision  in  their 
attitudes,  with  their  trunnions  buried  in  gravel,  and  there  are 
slight  indications  of  a  desire  on  their  part  for  recumbency, 
as  if  they  thought  that  Cambridge  did  not  appreciate  their 
watchfulness. 

After  March  17,  1776,  when  Boston  was  evacuated,  Cam- 
bridge ceased  to  be  involved  in  the  military  events  of  the 
Revolution. 

It  was  a  curious  feature  of  the  preliminary  contest  of  the 
colonies  with  Great  Britain,  that  the  people  constantly  asserted 
their  loyalty  to  the  Mother  Country ;  but  contact  with  actual 
bloodshed  and  participation  in  active  military  measures  in  time 
destroyed  all  feelings  of  allegiance  on  the  part  of  the  citizens 
of  Cambridge.  On  the  27th  of  May,  1776,  they  unanimously 
voted  that  the  towns  of  the  province  ought  to  instruct  their 
representatives  to  favor  independence.  The  resolutions  adopted 
at  the  time  concluded  with  these  words :  "  We  the  inhabitants 
of  the  town  of  Cambridge,  in  full  town  meeting  assembled  and 
warned  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  do  solemnly  engage  with  our 
lives  and  fortunes  to  support  them  in  the  measure."  Massa- 
chusetts was  already  practically  under  a  government  of  its  own, 
organized  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Provincial  Congress,  in  the 
manner  prescribed  by  the  charter  for  a  General  Court,  but 
with  no  governor  at  its  head.  This  General  Court  proposed  to 
frame  a  constitution,  but  June  16,  1777,  the  town  of  Cam- 
bridge instructed  its  representative  to  oppose  this  movement, 
and  when  in  1778  a  constitution  framed  by  the  General  Court 


28  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

in  convention  was  submitted  to  the  people,  the  inhabitants  of 
Cambridge  rejected  it  by  a  unanimous  vote. 

The  convention  which  framed  the  constitution  of  Massachu- 
setts that  was  afterwards  adopted  met  in  Cambridge  Septem- 
ber 1,  1779,  and  continued  its  sessions  there  until  March  2, 
1780.  At  a  town  meeting  held  in  Cambridge  May  22,  1780, 
the  Declaration  of  Rights  submitted  by  this  convention  was 
unanimously  approved.  To  the  constitution  certain  amend- 
ments were  suggested,  but  the  delegates  were  instructed  to 
ratify  it,  whether  these  amendments  were  adopted  or  not. 

During  the  thirty  years  which  we  have  just  considered,  while 
there  had  been  but  little  change  in  the  population  of  the  town, 
there  had  been  a  social  development  which  has  attracted  con- 
siderable attention.  Brattle  Street  as  it  now  runs  was  open 
from  Brattle  Square  nearly  to  Mount  Auburn,  and  the  property 
bordering  upon  it  was  owned  by  wealthy  loyalists.  This  has 
given  rise  to  the  title,  "  Tory  Row,"  by  which  their  beautiful 
houses  which  are  still  standing  have  since  been  known.  The 
picture  of  the  social  life  of  the  inmates  of  these  homes,  as  it  has 
been  handed  down  to  us,  is  charming  in  the  extreme.  Nearly 
all  of  them  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Committee  of  Corre- 
spondence, and  the  revenue  derived  from  them  was  appropri- 
ated for  public  service.  Some  of  these  estates  were  ultimately 
confiscated,  but  others  were  restored  to  the  families  of  their 
former  owners.  The  town  was  opposed  to  such  returns,  and. 
May  5,  1783,  instructed  its  representative  to  vote  against  them. 

In  October,  1777,  Burgoyne's  troops  were  temporarily  quar- 
tered in  this  town  and  vicinity.  A  part  remained  until  the 
succeeding  November.  Burgoyne  himself  had  quarters  assigned 
him  in  the  Borland  House,  on  the  easterly  side  of  Dunster 
Street,  about  midway  between  Mount  Auburn  and  Harvard 
streets.  General  Reidesel  was  quartered  in  the  Sewall  House, 
sometimes  called  the  Lechmere  House  from  a  former  owner.  A 
part  of  this  house  still  stands  at  the  western  corner  of  Reidesel 
Avenue  and  Brattle  Street.  It  was  while  her  husband  was 
quartered  there  that  Madame  Reidesel  gained  the  knowledge 
that  enabled  her  to  describe,  in  her  letters,  life  in  "  Tory  Row  " 
before  the  war  began.  "  Never  have  I  chanced,"  she  says,  "  upon 
such  an  agreeable  situation." 

We  have  now  reached  the  period  indicated  at  the  beginning 
of  this  sketch  as  the  point  in  the  history  of  the  town  where  a 


Ckaigie  Street. 


BRIDGES  AND   ROADS.  29 

marked  change  in  its  career  began.  Down  to  this  time  there 
had  been  little  oi"  no  fluctuation  in  the  population.  The  number 
of  inhabitants  in  1776  was  said  to  have  been  only  1586,  and  at 
that  time  both  Menotomy  and  the  parish  south  of  the  Charles 
were  parts  of  the  town.  Cambridgeport  and  East  Cambridge 
could  have  been  described  in  1780,  in  conveyancer's  language, 
as  woodlands,  pastures,  swamps,  and  salt  marsh.  The  little 
village  practically  ceased  at  Quincy  Street,  and  eastward  be- 
tween the  mansion  house  of  Judge  Dana,  on  what  is  now  called 
Dana  Street,  and  Boston  and  Charlestown,  there  were  in  1793, 
according  to  Rev.  Dr.  Holmes,  but  four  dwelling-houses.  On 
the  23d  of  November  of  that  year,  the  West  Boston  Bridge  was 
opened  for  public  travel.  Then  began  the  growth  which  soon 
transferred  the  centre  of  population  east  of  the  college.  The 
construction  of  the  Craigie  Bridge  in  1809  largely  contributed 
to  this  result  also.  Both  of  these  bridges  were  originally  pri- 
vate enterprises,  their  profits  being  dependent  upon  tolls.  As 
the  town  increased,  other  bridges  were  built,  partly  on  account 
of  the  growth  of  population,  and  partly  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  real  estate  into  the  market.  Prison  Point  Bridge  was 
constructed  in  1815,  under  authority  of  an  act  passed  in  1806. 
It  was  laid  out  as  a  county  road  in  1839.  The  bridge  at  the 
foot  of  River  Street  was  completed  in  1811,  and  was  assumed 
by  the  town  in  1832.  The  Western  Avenue  Bridge  was  built 
under  authority  of  an  act  passed  in  1824. 

A  glance  at  the  streets  and  avenues  which  were  laid  out  as 
feeders  to  the  Boston  bridges  will  show  the  important  part 
played  by  these  corporations  in  the  development  of  the  town. 
Radiating  from  Main  Street  (now  Massachusetts  Avenue)  and 
covering  the  territory  from  the  Charles  River  to  the  eastern 
boundary,  we  have  as  tributary  to  the  West  Boston  Bridge, 
River  Street,  Western  Avenue,  Broadway,  which  was  built  as 
a  continuation  of  the  Concord  Turnpike,  Hampshire  Street, 
which  was  a  part  of  the  Middlesex  Turnpike,  and  Webster 
Avenue,  formerly  known  as  Medford  Street.  Tributary  to 
Craigie  Bridge,  Cambridge  Street  was  opened,  crossing  the 
Middlesex  Turnpike,  intersecting  the  Concord  Turnpike,  and 
connecting  with  the  streets  through  which  the  Watertown  travel 
could  find  its  way  to  Boston.  Rivalry  between  these  bridge 
corporations  was  the  basis  of  many  a  hard-fought  battle,  in 
connection  with  street  openings. 


80  ,  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

The  Craigie  Bridge  was  but  a  part  of  a  real  estate  specula- 
tion. The  title  to  the  greater  portion  of  the  property  at  Lech- 
mere  Point  was  absorbed  by  a  company  incorporated  in  1810, 
as  the  Lechmere  Point  Corj)oration.  At  first  sales  of  lots  were 
sluggish,  but  a  fair  start  was  made  in  1813,  when  the  corpora- 
tion agreed  to  convey  to  Middlesex  County  enough  land  for  the 
county  buildings,  and  to  erect  a  court-house  and  a  jail,  satisfac- 
tory to  the  court,  at  an  expense  not  to  exceed  $24,000.  As  may 
be  conceived,  this  scheme  was  not  carried  out  without  opposition 
from  the  residents  in  the  older  part  of  the  town.  They  were, 
however,  powerless  to  prevent  it.  In  1816,  the  buildings  erected 
for  the  county  by  the  corporation  were  accepted,  and  the  courts 
have  held  their  sessions  at  East  Cambridge  since  that  date. 
This  liberal  contribution  of  land  and  money  by  the  corporation 
was  not  thrown  away.  From  the  time  of  its  acceptance  by  the 
county  the  success  of  the  enterprise  was  assured.  The  purchase 
of  a  site  in  East  Cambridge  for  their  plant  in  1814  by  the  Bos- 
ton Porcelain  and  Glass  Company  added  to  this  assurance. 

Cambridge  possesses  several  miles  of  water  front.  Its  value 
for  commercial  purposes  was  greatly  diminished  by  the  fact 
that  nearly  all  of  it  was  marsh-land,  which  could  only  be  made 
available  for  such  uses  through  extensive  means  of  preparation. 
That  this  could  be  accomplished  was,  however,  recognized  by 
the  government  in  1805,  when  Cambridge  was  declared  to  be 
a  port  of  delivery.  At  that  time  it  seemed  quite  probable  that 
Boston  and  Charlestown  and  Cambridge  might  avail  them- 
selves of  the  great  advantages  offered  by  the  protected  inner 
basin  called  the  Back  Bay  as  a  place  for  loading  and  discharg- 
ing vessels  of  light  draft.  An  extensive  attempt  was  made  to 
overcome  the  natural  disabilities  in  the  way  of  the  development 
of  the  region  near  the  foot  of  Main  Street,  by  the  construction 
through  the  intervening  marsh  between  the  river  and  dry  land, 
of  a  main  canal  known  as  Broad  Canal,  which  was  also  con- 
nected with  Miller's  River  by  another  running  north  from  it. 
The  West  Dock  Canal,  which  was  also  connected  with  Broad 
Canal,  was  so  constructed  as  to  furnish  a  place  for  loading  and 
discharging  vessels  in  the  area  now  surrounded  by  Portland  and 
Bristol  streets,  Webster  Avenue,  and  Hampshire  Street.  The 
South  Dock  Canal  was  a  similar  construction  near  the  junction 
of  Main,  Harvard,  and  Sixth  streets,  and  was  connected  with 
Broad  by  Cross  Canal,  and  had  also  a  separate  outlet  to  the 


THE  REV.  DR.  HOLMES.  31 

river.     The  only  existing  reminder  of  this  attempt  to  utilize 
our  water  front  is  Broad  Canal  itself,  which  is  still  used. 

In  1830,  an  attempt  to  inclose  the  common  lands  of  the 
town  and  convert  them  into  a  park  met  decided  opposition 
from  those  who  were  interested  in  the  Craigie  Bridge,  because 
it  would  divert  the  Concord  Turnpike  from  direct  connection 
with  Cambridge  Street.  This  opposition  was  seconded  by  the 
cattle-drivers,  who  wished  to  make  use  of  these  lands  as  a  rest- 
ing-place for  their  stock.  There  were  several  stormy  town 
meetings,  the  attendance  at  which  was  so  great  that  it  was  ne- 
cessary to  adjourn  from  the  court-house  to  the  church.  Appeal 
was  made  to  the  county  commissioners,  the  General  Court,  and 
even  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Fortunately  the  Common  was 
saved  as  a  park,  but  the  contest  demonstrated  the  inadequacy 
of  the  old  court-house  for  town  meetings.  East  Cambridge  had 
secured  the  county  buildings  and  shown  the  vulnerability  of  the 
old  part  of  the  town.  The  Port  determined  to  have  the  town- 
house.  A  lot  of  land  containing  about  eleven  acres,  bounded 
by  Harvard,  Norfolk,  Austin,  and  Prospect  streets,  had  been 
secured  in  1818  for  an  almshouse.  On  this  land  it  was  voted, 
in  1830,  to  erect  a  town-house,  and  in  pursuance  of  this  vote  a 
wooden  building  was  put  up  on  the  easterly  part  of  the  lot,  in 
which,  March  5,  1732,  there  was  held  for  the  first  time  a  town 
meeting,  and  in  which  thereafter,  so  long  as  Cambridge  remained 
a  town,  all  such  meetings  were  held.  Thus  was  Harvard  Square 
robbed  of  its  last  claim  to  be  considered  the  centre  of  the  town, 
with  the  exception  that  the  First  Parish  Church  still  stood  there. 
Even  the  prestige  which  attached  to  this  fact  had  been  greatly 
diminished  through  the  withdrawal  from  the  church  of  a  major- 
ity of  the  church-members  and  communicants.  This  step  was 
taken  in  1829,  in  consequence  of  the  conclusion  by  the  parish 
that  the  ministration  of  Rev.  Dr.  Holmes  could  no  longer  be 
maintained  with  any  possibility  of  advancing  their  religious 
interests.  Those  having  the  legal  power  to  vote  were  therefore 
of  opinion  that  there  was  sufficient  cause  to  terminate  the  con- 
tract subsisting  between  the  parish  and  the  pastor.  The  cause 
of  the  trouble  was  purely  theological.  A  majority  of  the  parish 
were  Unitarians.  Dr.  Holmes  and  his  followers  were  Trinita- 
rians. The  latter  organized  a  new  society,  which  they  called  the 
Shepard  Congregational  Society. 

In  1814,  a  new  church  had  been  organized,  under  the  auspices 


32  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,   1750-1846. 

of  the  college.  This  was  the  first  step  towards  a  separation 
of  the  college  from  the  town  church.  In  1833,  the  old  meeting- 
house was  abandoned,  and  a  new  building,  situated  on  the  west- 
erly side  of  Harvard  Square  between  Church  Street  and  the 
burial  ground,  was  dedicated  to  the  uses  of  the  congregation. 
The  land  on  which  the  old  building  stood  was  surrendered  to 
the  college,  which  also  bore  a  portion  of  the  exj)ense  of  the 
new  building  and  retained  certain  rights  in  it.  For  forty  years 
thereafter  the  annual  exercises  of  Commencement  were  held  in 
the  new  church. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  in  1818  land  was  purchased 
in  Cambridgeport  for  an  almshouse.  A  brick  house  was 
erected  on  it,  which  was  first  occupied  in  September,  1818.  It 
was  burned  July  20,  1836,  and  temporary  provision  for  the 
town's  poor  was  made  in  a  building  on  the  north  side  of  Main 
Street  nearly  opposite  Osborn  Street.  This  building  was  occu- 
pied until  1838,  when  the  inmates  were  removed  to  a  new  brick 
almshouse  on  land  on  Charles  River  between  Western  Avenue 
and  River  Street,  now  a  part  of  the  Riverside  Press. 

The  efforts  to  develop  the  growth  of  the  town  which  were 
made  in  the  early  days  of  our  independence  have  already  been 
described.  They  were  upon  a  scale  of  magnitude  which,  when 
we  consider  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  accom- 
plished, was  surprising.  Bridges,  avenues  and  streets,  turn- 
pikes, and  canals,  all  were  directly  in  that  interest.  The  popu- 
lation in  1790  was  2115.  In  1810,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  Brighton  and  West  Cambridge  had  in  the  mean  time  been 
set  off,  the  census  showed  2323  inhabitants.  In  1840,  there 
were  8409,  and  in  1850  there  were  15,215.  There  must  have 
been  therefore  in  Cambridge  in  1846  six  times  as  many  inhab- 
itants as  there  were  in  Cambridge,  Brighton,  and  West  Cam- 
bridge in  1790.  This  growth  was  at  a  rate  nearly  three  times 
that  of  the  State  at  large  during  the  same  period.  This  pros- 
perity resulted  from  protracted  peace,  and  freedom  from  great 
political  excitement.  For  many  years  after  the  organization 
of  the  state  government  there  were  but  few  events  which  inter- 
fered with  it.  It  is  true  that  the  insurrection  termed  Shays's 
Rebellion,  in  1786,  paralyzed  for  the  time  being  the  progress  of 
western  Massachusetts,  but  Cambridge  declined  to  participate 
in  the  convention  which  was  called  by  those  who  inaugurated 
this  movement.   In  1807,  too,  there  was  a  period  of  serious  busi- 


MANUFACTURES  AND  EDUCATION.  33 

ness  depression  caused  by  the  embargo.  This  was  so  severely 
felt  by  the  town  that  in  1808  a  petition  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  was  adopted  in  town  meeting,  requesting  a  sus- 
pension in  the  whole  or  in  part  of  the  embargo  laws.  To  this 
petition  the  President  replied,  saying  that  Congress  alone  had 
the  power  to  modify  the  law  under  which  the  embargo  procla- 
mation had  been  issued.  The  War  of  1812  followed.  It 
continued  the  depression,  and  retarded  the  growth  of  Cam- 
bridgeport  and  East  Cambridge.  During  these  troubles  the 
Cambridge  Light  Infantry  was  under  arms  for  coast  defense. 
The  declaration  of  peace  was  the  occasion  of  a  great  celebra- 
tion by  the  town  on  the  23d  of  February,  1815.  The  disturb- 
ances referred  to  above,  while  they  were  felt  to  be  serious 
when  they  occurred,  serve  only  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  in 
a  general  way  the  town  was  prosperous,  and  its  progress,  though 
retarded,  was  not  stopped. 

The  growth  of  the  manufactures  of  Cambridge  does  not 
belong  to  the  period  which  we  are  now  considering.  The 
application  of  steam  as  a  power  for  purposes  of  transportation, 
and  as  a  substitute  for  wind  or  water  in  manufactures,  was  in 
its  infancy.  The  New  England  Glass  Company,  established 
about  1814,  and  a  few  soap  companies,  constitute  all  the  indus- 
tries mentioned  by  Paige  during  this  period,  which  were  of  real 
importance  to  Cambridge. 

In  matters  of  education,  Cambridge  had  kept  pace  with  her 
neighbors.  Prior  to  1800,  the  records  are  not  clear  as  to  the 
number  and  location  of  the  schools,  but  Dr.  Holmes  states  that 
at  that  date  there  were  in  the  town  besides  the  Grammar  School, 
a  little  to  the  westward  of  the  Episcopal  church,  two  schools  in 
each  of  the  three  parishes.  There  were,  therefore,  at  that  time, 
in  Cambridge  as  now  constituted,  three  schools.  Mr.  Paige 
gives  the  names  of  thirteen  schoolhouses  standing  in  1845.  He 
adds  that  the  earliest  record  of  the  election  of  a  school  com- 
mittee which  he  was  able  to  find  was  in  1744.  In  1834,  the 
schools  were  graded.  Mayor  Green,  in  his  inaugural  address, 
in  1853,  claimed  for  Cambridge  the  honor  of  having  introduced 
this  system  into  the  Commonwealth,  and  of  having  carried  it  to 
its  greatest  degree  of  completeness. 

Within  the  limits  of  what  now  constitutes  Cambridge  there 
was  in  1750  a  single  church.  Between  that  date  and  the  incor- 
poration of  Cambridge  as  a  city,  seventeen  religious  societies 


34  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN,  1750-1846. 

were  organized,  the  details  concerning  which  have  been  collated 
by  Mr.  Paige,  and  are  to  be  found  in  his  chapter  on  "  Ecclesi- 
astical History." 

The  parallel  growth  of  three  distinct  centres  within  the  limits 
of  one  town  could  not  take  place  without  raising  questions  as  to 
the  expenditure  of  the  public  money  in  the  development  of  the 
different  sections.  Jealousies  were  inevitable,  and  the  interests 
of  the  different  sections  seemed  on  the  whole  to  be  so  marked 
and  distinct  in  1842,  that  the  residents  of  Old  Cambridge  peti- 
tioned to  be  set  off  as  a  separate  town.  This  movement  was 
successfully  opposed  by  the  town  as  a  whole,  but  it  doubtless 
led  to  the  suggestion  of  a  city  charter  as  a  remedy.  It  is 
true  that  another  attehipt  was  made  to  divide  the  town  while 
action  on  the  city  charter  was  pending,  but  the  act  to  establish 
the  City  of  Cambridge  became  a  law  March  17,  1846.  Under 
this  act  Cambridge  could  not  become  a  city,  unless  a  majority 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  should  vote  to  adopt  the  act  at  a 
town  meeting  called  for  the  purpose.  Such  a  meeting  was  held 
March  30, 1846.  A  majority  vote  was  cast  in  favor  of  adopting 
the  city  charter,  and  Cambridge  became  a  city. 

With  this  event  the  period  to  be  treated  in  this  sketch  closes. 
It  has  not  been  possible  to  enter  into  any  details  as  to  the  growth 
of  our  schools  and  our  churches,  nor  could  the  attention  of  the 
reader  be  drawn  to  individuals  of  prominence  whose  names  are 
associated  with  Cambridge  as  a  town.  These  facts  are  all  to  be 
found  in  Paige's  "  Cambridge,"  a  volume  which  must  stand  for 
all  time  as  the  authority  for  the  history  of  the  town  of  Cam- 
bridge. Upon  it  the  writer  of  this  sketch  has  depended  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  facts  which  he  has  selected  to  illustrate  the 
career  of  the  town. 


LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE  TOWN. 

By  THOMAS  WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON. 

No  town  in  this  country  has  been  the  occasion  of  two  literary 
descriptions  more  likely  to  become  classic  than  two  which  bear 
reference  to  the  Cambridge  of  fifty  years  ago.  One  of  these  is 
Lowell's  well-known  "  Fireside  Travels,"  and  the  other  is  the 
scarcely  less  racy  chapter  in  the  Harvard  Book,  called  "  Har- 
vard Square,"  contributed  by  our  townsman  John  Holmes, 
younger  brother  of  "  the  Autocrat,"  —  a  man  mentioned  more 
than  once  in  Lowell's  prose  and  verse.  Emerson  said  once 
of  John  Holmes  that  he  represented  humor,  while  his  brother, 
Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes,  represented  wit;  and  certainly  every  page 
of  this  "  Harvard  Square  "  chapter  is  full  of  the  former  and 
rarer  quality.  Charles  Lamb's  celebrated  description  of  the 
Christ  Church  hospital  and  school  of  his  boyhood  does  not  give 
more  of  the  flavor  of  an  older  day. 

Those  who  refer  to  that  chapter  will  see  at  the  head  a  vignette 
of  "  Harvard  Square  in  1822,  taken  from  a  sketch  made  at  the 
period."  It  seems  at  first  sight  to  have  absolutely  nothing  in 
common  with  the  Harvard  Square  of  the  present  day,  but  to 
belong  rather  to  some  small  hamlet  of  western  Massachusetts. 
Yet  it  recalls  with  instantaneous  vividness  the  scenes  of  my 
youth,  and  is  the  very  spot  through  which  Holmes,  and  Lowell, 
and  Richard  Dana,  and  Story  the  sculptor,  and  Margaret  Fuller 
Ossoli,  walked  daily  to  the  post-office,  or  weekly  to  the  church. 
The  sketch  was  taken  in  the  year  before  my  own  birth,  but 
remained  essentially  unchanged  for  ten  years  thereafter,  the 
population  of  the  whole  town  having  increased  only  from  32^5 
in  1820  to  6072  in  1830.  The  trees  on  the  right  overshadowed 
the  quaint  barber's  shop  of  Marcus  Reemie,  crammed  with 
quaint  curiosities  ;  and  also  a  building  occupied  by  the  law  pro- 
fessor, its  angle  still  represented  by  that  of  College  House. 
The  trees  on  the  left  were  planted  by  my  own  father,  as  were 


36  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN. 

nearly  all  the  trees  in  the  college  yard,  he  being  then  the  newly 
appointed  steward  —  now  rechristened  bursar  —  of  the  col- 
lege, and  doing,  as  Dr.  Peabody  has  told  us,  the  larger  part  of 
the  treasurer's  duties.  On  the  left,  beyond  the  trees,  stood 
the  First  Parish  Church  with  its  then  undivided  congregation, 
its  weathercock  high  in  air,  its  seats  within  each  lifted  by  a 
hinge,  and  refreshing  every  child  by  its  bang  and  rattle  when 
dropped  after  prayer  time.  In  the  centre  was  the  little  Market 
House,  which  once  gave  the  name  of  "  the  Market-Place  "  to 
what  was  later  called,  in  my  memory,  "  the  village."  In  the 
cellar  below  this  building  was  the  oyster  shop  of  the  Snow 
brothers,  described  by  Lowell  in  couplets  of  such  wit  that  if 
they  had  been  printed  in  some  book  of  English  University  face- 
tiousness  —  some  "  Oxford  Sausage  "  or  "  Cambridge  Garland  " 
—  they  would  have  found  a  place  in  every  collection  of  English 
verse.  But  the  two  indistinguishable  brothers  formed  them- 
selves a  couplet  quainter  and  neater  than  even  their  Laureate 
could  furnish. 

The  only  larger  building  fully  visible  in  the  sketch  is  the 
only  one  of  these  yet  remaining,  having  survived  its  good  looks, 
if  it  ever  had  any,  and  very  nearly  survived  its  usefulness.  The 
rooms  now  occupied  as  the  waiting-roomcof  the  West  End  Rail- 
way were  then  the  bar-room  and  rear  parlor  of  the  Cambridge 
hotel ;  the  two  rooms  being  connected  by  a  sliding  panel,  through 
which  the  host  thrust  any  potations  demanded  by  the  guests  in 
the  parlor.  There  was  held,  in  the  rear  room,  I  remember,  a 
moderately  convivial  "  spread  "  in  1840,  given  by  the  speakers 
at  an  "  exhibition,"  —  a  sort  of  intermediate  Commencement 
Day,  long  since  discontinued,  —  in  which  I,  as  the  orator  of  the 
day,  was  supposed  to  take  a  leading  part,  although  in  fact  I  only 
contributed  towards  the  singing,  the  speaking,  and  the  payment 
of  the  bills.  At  tliat  time  the  population  of  the  whole  town 
had  expanded  to  8409,  rather  more  than  one  third  of  this  being 
.  in  what  is  now  Ward  One. 

It  is  hard  to  convey  an  impression  of  the  smallness  of  the 
then  Cambridge  in  all  its  parts  and  the  fewness  of  its  houses. 
The  house  in  which  I  was  born  in  1823,  and  which  had  been 
built  by  my  father,  was  that  at  the  head  of  Kirkland  Street, 
then  Professors'  Row,  —  the  house  now  occupied  by  Mrs.  F. 
C.  Batchelder.  The  field  opposite,  now  covered  largely  by 
Memorial  Hall,  was  then  an  open  common,  where  I  remem- 


w 


"THE  BOWER   OF  BLISS."  37 

ber  to  have  seen  the  students  climbing  or  swinging  on  Dr. 
Charles  FoUen's  outdoor  gymnastic  apparatus ;  or  perhaps 
forming  to  trot  away  with  him  at  double-quick,  their  hands 
clenched  at  their  sides,  across  the  country.  The  rest  of  the 
Delta  was  covered  with  apple-trees,  whose  fruit  we  boys  used 
to  discharge  at  one  another  from  pointed  sticks.  Looking  down 
Professors'  Row  we  could  see  but  four  houses,  the  open  road 
then  proceeding  to  Somerville.  On  Quincy  Street  there  was  no 
house  between  Professors'  Row  and  Broadway,  and  we  used  to 
play  in  what  was  said  to  be  an  old  Indian  cornfield,  where  the 
New  Church  Theological  School  now  stands.  Between  Quincy 
Street  and  Cambridgeport  lay  an  unbroken  stretch  of  woods 
and  open  fields,  and  the  streets  were  called  "roads,"  —  the 
Craigie  Road  and  the  Clark  Road,  now  Harvard  Street  and 
Broadway,  each  with  one  house  on  what  was  already  called 
Dana  Hill.  Going  north  from  my  father's  house,  there  were 
near  it  the  Holmes  House  and  one  or  two  smaller  houses ;  up 
"  the  Concord  Road,"  now  Massachusetts  Avenue,  there  were 
but  few ;  the  Common  was  unfenced  until  1830 ;  up  Brattle 
Street  there  were  only  the  old  houses  of  Tory  Row  and  one  or 
two  late  additions.  On  the  south  side  of  Brattle  Street  there 
was  not  a  house  from  Hawthorn  Street  to  Elm  wood  Avenue ; 
all  was  meadow-land  and  orchards.  Mount  Auburn  Street  was 
merely  "the  back  road  to  Mount  Auburn,"  with  a  delightful 
bathing  place  at  Simond's  Hill,  behind  what  is  now  the  hospi- 
tal, —  an  eminence  afterwards  carted  away  by  the  city  and  now 
utterly  vanished.  Just  behind  it  was  a  delicious  nook,  still  in- 
dicated by  one  or  two  lingering  trees,  which  we  named  "  The 
Bower  of  Bliss,"  at  a  time  when  the  older  boys,  Lowell  and 
Story,  had  begun  to  read  and  declaim  to  us  from  Spenser's 
"Faerie  Queene."  The  old  willows  now  included  in  the  Casino 
grounds  were  an  equally  favorite  play-place ;  we  stopped  there 
on  our  return  from  bathing,  or  botanizing,  or  butterflying,  and 
lay  beneath  the  trees. 

North  Cambridge  as  yet  was  not,  though  Porter's  Tavern 
was ;  and  we  Old  Cambridge  boys  watched  with  a  pleased  inter- 
est, not  quite  undemoralizing,  the  triumphant  march  of  the  "  Har- 
vard Washington  Corps  "  —  the  college  military  company  —  to 
that  hostelry  for  dinner  on  public  days ;  and  their  less  regular 
and  decorous  return.  The  outlying  settlement  of  East  Cam- 
bridge, oftener  called  Lechmere's  Point,  was  more  rarely  vis- 


38  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN. 

ited ;  but  when  we  went  to  Boston  it  was  by  taking  "  Morse's 
hourly  "  and  passing  through  the  then  open  region,  past  Dana 
Hill,  to  the  "  Port,"  where  we  sometimes  had  to  encounter,  even 
on  the  stage-box,  the  open  irreverence  of  the  "  Port  chucks," 
who  kept  up  a  local  antagonism  now  apparently  extinct.  Some- 
how, I  do  not  know  why,  the  Port  delegation  seemed  to  be 
larger  and  more  pugnacious,  as  Dr.  Holmes  has  pointed  out, 
than  the  sons  of  professors  and  college  stewards ;  and  some- 
thing of  this  disparity  was  found,  even  in  Old  Cambridge, 
between  the  "  town  boys,"  who  represented  the  village  contin- 
gent, and  the  "  Wells  boys,"  who  were  mostly  the  sons  of  the 
aforesaid  college  worthies,  and  who  went  to  the  private  day- 
school  and  boarding-school  of  William  Wells,  in  the  rambling 
old  house  still  occupied  by  his  grandson,  William  Wells  Newell, 
opposite  Elmwood  Avenue.  I  can  well  remember  the  wide 
berth  I  was  accustomed  to  give,  as  one  of  the  younger  Wells 
boys,  to  our  late  excellent  fellow-citizen.  Alderman  Chapman, 
the  rather  aggressive  leader  of  the  other  party;  and  it  was 
pleasant  to  me  in  later  years,  never  quite  outgrowing  this  early 
shyness  in  his  presence,  to  see  all  spoilsmen  and  tricksters 
fighting  equally  shy  of  that  admirable  citizen. 

It  may  be  hastily  assumed  that  in  this  primeval  period  Cam- 
bridge was  the  most  decorous  and  orderly  of  villages.  It  would, 
perhaps,  have  been,  but  for  one  potent  element  of  misrule,  — 
something  to  which  nothing  of  the  present  day  can  be  in  the 
least  compared. 

There  are  now  about  3000  students  resident  in  Cambridge. 
There  were,  by  the  catalogue  of  1845-46,  only  458.  But  of 
that  458,  132  were  in  the  Law  School,  and  of  that  number 
57  were  from  the  Slave  States ;  and  those  few  dozen  unques- 
tionably exceeded,  in  capacity  of  disorder,  the  whole  3000  of 
the  present  day.  They  indeed  introduced,  unaided,  more  ele- 
ments of  marked  variety  into  Cambridge  society  than  is  now 
obtainable  in  the  whole  university.  The  difference  between  the 
richest  "  swell "  in  college  to-day  and  the  poorest  "  grind  "  is 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  difference  in  habits  and  bearing 
between  the  average  Southern  and  the  average  Northern  stu- 
dent, fifty  years  ago.  These  young  men  from  Georgia  and  Mis- 
sissippi had  almost  always  fashionable  clothes  and  attractive 
manners,  were  often  graceful  dancers,  and  took  the  lead  in 
society ;  but  they  were  very  apt  to  be  indolent,  dissipated,  quar- 


MORAL  IMPROVEMENT.  39 

relsome,  and  sometimes  they  were  extremely  ignorant.  They 
were  attracted  here  by  the  wide  fame  of  Judge  Story,  and  dis- 
appeared with  the  Civil  War.  There  seemed  to  be  almost  no 
discipline  in  the  Law  School,  —  people  spoke  of  "  reading  law," 
but  not  of  studying  law,  —  and  the  students  of  this  description 
did  very  much  what  they  pleased.  When,  after  being  absent 
from  my  native  place  for  many  years,  I  returned  here  to  live, 
I  asked  Alderman  Chapman  why  it  was  that  there  were  no 
longer  any  street  fights,  as  formerly,  between  the  students  and 
the  young  mechanics  of  the  town.  He  said :  "  Those  things 
stopped  when  the  Southern  law  students  disappeared.  Hot- 
headed fellows ;  always  getting  into  fights.  I  was  in  some  of 
those  fights  myself."  "  Alderman,"  I  said,  "  I  have  not  the 
slightest  doubt  of  it." 

Some  other  bad  practices  have  also  disappeared,  for  which 
the  Southern  students  were  not  altogether  responsible.  Al- 
though the  average  age  of  the  undergraduates  was  then  a  year 
or  two  younger  than  now,  —  I  was  the  youngest  in  my  class 
and  was  not  eighteen  at  graduation,  —  yet  the  moral  standard 
was  in  some  respects  not  so  high  as  to-day.  If  there  was  not 
then  more  dissipation  in  proportion  to  the  numbers,  it  certainly 
was  more  visible.  Public  opinion,  even  in  college  itself,  would 
not  now  tolerate  the  spectacle  already  mentioned,  of  members 
of  the  "  College  Company "  staggering  out  of  the  ranks  and 
falling  by  the  wayside,  or  of  members  of  the  graduating  class 
clustered  about  Liberty-Tree,  on  the  afternoon  of  Class  Day, 
welcoming  all  other  students  to  their  buckets  of  purifch.  To 
quote  Alderman  Chapman  once  more,  I  asked  him  once  how 
long  since  he  had  seen  a  Harvard  student  intoxicated,  by  day- 
light at  least.  I  knew  that  his  business  called  him  through 
Harvard  Square  constantly.  He  said :  "  Hardly  since  I  can  re- 
member ;  "  when  I  said  :  "  It  was  not  so  very  uncommon  in 
the  little  Harvard  of  our  youth  ;  "  and  he  replied  :  "  Certainly 
not."  Of  course  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  access  to  Boston 
is  now  very  much  easier,  and  that  convivial  meetings  occur  there 
rather  than  in  Cambridge  ;  still  the  fact  is  of  value.  I  should 
say  in  general  that,  even  if  the  average  standard  of  morality  is 
no  higher,  the  standard  of  gentlemanly  conduct  is  very  much 
higher  ;  and  this,  with  young  men,  provides  a  partial  substitute 
for  the  other.  In  the  more  boyish  class  of  offenses,  such  as 
the  breaking  of  windows,  the  making  of  bonfires,  and  the  hoot- 


40  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN. 

ing  under  the  windows  of  unpopular  instructors,  there  has  been 
a  change  so  great  as  to  come  near  extinction.  This  is  still  more 
true  of  the  robbing  of  hen-roosts  and  of  market  gardens,  which 
would  now  be  considered  exceedingly  bad  form,  but  which  was 
then  a  very  common  practice.  I  can  recall  members  of  my  class, 
afterwards  grave  dignitaries,  who  used  to  go  out  in  parties  on 
autumn  evenings  with  large  baskets,  and  bring  them  back  laden 
with  apples,  pears,  grapes,  and  melons  from  the  region  now 
known  as  Belmont. 

The  social  orders  of  Cambridge  were,  at  least  in  the  region 
of  Harvard  Square,  more  distinctly  stratified  than  now ;  there 
was  then  a  more  distinct  gentry,  consisting  largely  of  the  col- 
lege people  and  those  who  had  come  to  Cambridge  to  educate 
their  sons.  In  1845-46,  the  whole  number  of  resident  instruc- 
tors of  all  grades,  including  the  Law  and  Divinity  schools,  com- 
prised but  twenty,  instead  of  being  counted  as  now  by  hundreds ; 
but  the  families  of  those  twenty  were  the  social  centre.  I 
remember  the  perfectly  courteous  and  dignified  relation  between 
these  dignitaries  and  the  Cambridge  mechanics,  whom  it  was 
common  to  hear  praised  as  a  rather  picked  class,  and  whose 
children  and  grandchildren  are  now  themselves  professors  in  the 
college  or  leading  professional  men.  Lowell  has  testified  to 
the  magnificent  manners  of  old  Royal  Morse,  the  Cambridge 
auctioneer,  who  proportioned  each  wave  of  his  hat  to  the  rec- 
ognized social  —  that  is  academical  —  position  of  the  person 
saluted.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  must  have  been  something 
English  about  it  all,  for  I  remember  that  in  reading  Irving's 
"  Sketch  Book  "  and  "  Bracebridge  Hall,"  as  a  boy,  I  found 
nothing  essentially  unlike  types  known  to  me  at  home.  Espe- 
cially easy  was  it  to  identify  his  village  monarch,  "  Ready 
Money  Jack,"  with  the  broad  shoulders  and  yeomanlike  bear- 
ing of  old  Emery  Willard,  reputed  the  strongest  man  in  the 
village,  who  kept  the  wood-yard  just  across  Brighton  Bridge. 

In  my  memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli  I  have  attempted 
to  sketch  the  cultivated  women  who  lived  in  Cambridge  and 
were  a  controlling  power.  Mrs.  Farrar,  Mrs.  Norton,  Mrs. 
Howe,  Mrs.  King,  and  others,  —  of  whom  Miss  Fuller  herself 
was  the  representative  in  the  next  generation,  —  and  whom  I 
was  accustomed  to  seeing  treated  with  resjiect  by  educated  men, 
although  these  ladies  themselves  had  never  passed  through  col- 


FARMS  ALL   OVER   TOWN.  41 

lege.  Yet  Radcliffe  was  anticipated  in  a  small  way  by  the 
advantages  already  held  out  to  studious  girls  through  the  college 
professors ;  and  my  own  elder  sister  studied  Latin,  French, 
Italian,  German,  and  geometry  with  teachers  thus  provided. 
Some  of  these  instructors  were  cultivated  foreigners,  who  had 
been  driven  here  as  German  or  Italian  reformers,  and  were  glad 
to  eke  out  the  scanty  salaries  paid  by  the  college.  In  all  these 
social  descriptions  I  have  in  view  mainly  the  region  now  called 
Harvard  Square,  because  I  knew  it  best ;  although  it  is  worth 
remarking  that  the  finest  library  in  all  Cambridge  —  that  since 
bequeathed  by  Thomas  Dowse,  the  leather  dresser,  to  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Historical  Society  —  was  in  Cambridgeport,  and  was 
constantly  shown  to  strangers  as  a  curiosity ;  and  that  not 
far  from  it  stood  our  one  artist's  studio,  that  of  Washington 
Allston. 

The  children  of  Cambridge  had  the  increased  enjoyment  of 
life  that  comes  from  country  living.  The  farm  of  our  old  min- 
ister. Dr.  Abiel  Holmes,  was  next  to  our  house,  occupying  all 
the  ground  now  covered  by  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium,  the 
Scientific  School,  the  Jefferson  Laboratory,  and  Holmes  Field. 
There,  with  the  dear  old  doctor's  grandson,  Charles  Parsons, 
we  boys  of  Professors'  Row  had  the  rural  delights  of  husking 
corn  and  riding  on  the  haycart.  There  were  farms  all  over 
town,  —  all  the  way  up  the  West  Cambridge  (Arlington)  road, 
and  also  between  Old  Cambridge  and  Boston,  with  an  occasional 
outbreak  of  ropewalks,  spreading,  like  sprawling  caterpillars, 
through  what  is  now  Ward  Four.  There  were  also  some  well- 
preserved  revolutionary  fortifications,  —  one  remarkably  fine  one 
on  what  is  now  Putnam  Avenue,  —  but  these  have  now  unfortu- 
nately vanished.  There  were  ample  woods  for  wildflowers,  — 
Norton's  woods  and  Palfrey's  woods  especially,  —  and  I  have 
deposited  at  the  Botanical  Garden  my  early  botanical  note- 
books, showing  what  rare  wild-flowers,  such  as  the  cardinal 
flower,  the  fringed  gentian,  and  the  gaudy  rhexia,  once  grew 
within  the  town  limits.  There  were  also  birds  now  banished 
which  I  ineffectually  vexed  with  bow  and  arrow,  envying  hope- 
lessly the  double-barreled  gun  —  perhaps  equally  superfluous 
—  of  my  elder  brother.  Often  I  have  taken  part  in  those 
May  parties  described  so  pityingly  by  Lowell  in  "Biglow 
Papers."     We  learned  to  skate  on  Craigie's  Pond,  to  swim  in 


42  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE   TOWN. 

the  then  unpolluted  Charles  Kiver,  to  row  at  Fresh  Pond.  We 
were  without  many  things  which  now  make  the  bliss  of  boys, 
—  bicycles  and  kodaks  and  toboggans,  —  but  after  all,  the 
Cambridge  village  of  those  days  was  a  pleasant  birthplace. 
Yet  in  what  place  is  it  not  a  happy  thing  for  a  boy  to  have 
been  born  ? 


THE   GAMBREL-ROOFED   HOUSE.^ 

By  OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES. 

ONE  OF  THE  DELIGHTFUL  PAPERS  IN  THE  SERIES  CALLED  "  THE  POET  AT  THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE  "  IS  MAINLY  DEVOTED  TO  A  DESCRIPTION  OF  AN  OLD  CAM- 
BRIDGE HOME  NOW  PASSED  AWAY  :  THE  FOLLOWING  EXTRACTS  ARE  MADE 
FROM  IT. 

My  birthplace,  the  home  of  my  childhood  and  earlier  and 
later  boyhood,  has  within  a  few  months  passed  out  of  the  owner- 
ship of  my  family  into  the  hands  of  that  venerable  Alma  Mater 
who  seems  to  have  renewed  her  youth,  and  has  certainly  re- 
painted her  dormitories.^  In  truth,  when  I  last  revisited  that 
familiar  scene  and  looked  upon  the  flammantia  moenia  of  the 
old  halls,  "  Massachusetts  "  with  the  dummy  clock-dial,  "  Har- 
vard "  with  the  garrulous  belfry,  little  "  Holden "  with  the 
sculptured  unpunishable  cherubs  over  its  portal,  and  the  rest  of 
my  early  brick-and-mortar  acquaintances,  I  could  not  help  say- 
ing to  myself  that  I  had  lived  to  see  the  peaceable  establishment 
of  the  Red  Republic  of  Letters. 

The  estate  was  the  third  lot  of  the  eighth  "  Squadron  "  (what- 
ever that  might  be),  and  in  the  year  1707  was  allotted  in  the 
distribution  of  undivided  lands  to  "  Mr.  ffox,"  the  Reverend 
Jabez  Fox,  of  Woburn,  it  may  be  supposed,  as  it  passed  from 
his  heirs  to  the  first  Jonathan  Hastings ;  from  him  to  his  son, 
the  long-remembered  College  Steward ;  from  him,  in  the  year 
1792,  to  the  Reverend  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Professor  of  Hebrew 
and  other  Oriental  languages  in  Harvard  College,  whose  large 
personality  swam  into  my  ken  when  I  was  looking  forward  to 
my  teens ;  from  him  to  the  progenitors  of  my  unborn  self. 

In  the  days  of  my  earliest  remembrance,  a  row  of  tall  Lom- 
bardy  poplars  mounted  guard  on  the  western  side  of  the  old 
mansion.     Whether,  like  the  cypress,  these  trees  suggest  the 

^  Copyright,   1872,  by  Oliver  Wendell   Holmes.     All   rights   reserved. 
Used  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
^  This  was  written  in  1872. 


44  THE  GAMBREL-ROOFED  HOUSE. 

idea  of  the  funeral  torch  or  the  monumental  spire,  whether  their 
tremulous  leaves  make  us  afraid  by  sympathy  with  their  ner- 
vous thrills,  whether  the  faint  balsamic  smell  of  their  leaves 
and  their  closely  swathed  limbs  have  in  them  vague  hints  of 
dead  Pharaohs  stiffened  in  their  cerements,  I  will  not  guess ; 
but  they  always  seemed  to  me  to  give  an  air  of  sepulchral  sad- 
ness to  the  house  before  which  they  stood  sentries.  Not  so  with 
the  row  of  elms  which  you  may  see  leading  up  towards  the  west- 
ern entrance.  I  think  the  patriai'ch  of  them  all  went  over  in 
the  great  gale  of  1815  ;  I  know  I  used  to  shake  the  youngest  of 
them  with  my  hands,  stout  as  it  is  now,  with  a  trunk  that  would 
defy  the  bully  of  Crotona. 

But  I  am  forgetting  the  old  house  again  in  the  landscape. 
The  worst  of  a  modern  stylish  mansion  is,  that  it  has  no  place 
for  ghosts.  Now  the  old  house  had  wainscots,  behind  which 
the  mice  were  always  scampering  and  squeaking  and  rattling 
down  the  plaster,  and  enacting  family  scenes  and  parlor  theat- 
ricals. It  had  a  cellar  where  the  cold  slug  clung  to  the  walls, 
and  the  misanthropic  spider  withdrew  from  the  garish  day; 
where  the  green  mould  loved  to  grow,  and  the  long  white  potato- 
shoots  went  feeling  along  the  floor,  if  haply  they  might  find  the 
daylight ;  it  had  great  brick  pillars,  always  in  a  cold  sweat  with 
holding  up  the  burden  they  had  been  aching  under  day  and 
night  for  a  century  and  more ;  it  had  sepulchral  arches  closed 
by  rough  doors  that  hung  on  hinges  rotten  with  rust,  behind 
which  doors,  if  there  was  not  a  heap  of  bones  connected  with  a 
mysterious  disappearance  of  long  ago,  there  well  might  have 
been,  for  it  was  just  the  place  to  look  for  them.  It  had  a 
garret,  very  nearly  such  a  one  as  it  seems  to  me  one  of  us  has 
described  in  one  of  his  books ;  but  let  us  look  at  this  one  as  I 
can  reproduce  it  from  memory.  It  has  a  flooring  of  laths  with 
ridges  of  mortar  squeezed  up  between  them,  which  if  you  tread 
on  you  will  go  to  —  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  you !  where  will 
you  go  to  ?  the  same  being  crossed  by  narrow  bridges  of  boards, 
on  which  you  may  put  your  feet,  but  with  fear  and  trembling. 
Above  you  and  around  you  are  beams  and  joists,  on  some  of 
which  you  may  see,  when  the  light  is  let  in,  the  marks  of  the 
conchoidal  clippings  of  the  broadaxe,  showing  the  rude  way  in 
which  the  timber  was  shaped  as  it  came,  full  of  sap,  from  the 
neighboring  forest.  It  is  a  realm  of  darkness  and  thick  dust, 
and  shroud-like  cobwebs  and  dead  things  they  wrap  in  their 


THE  GARRET  AND   THE  BOOK  INFIRMARY.  45 

gray  folds.  For  a  garret  is  like  a  sea-shore,  where  wrecks  are 
thrown  up  and  slowly  go  to  pieces.  There  is  the  cradle  which 
the  old  man  you  just  remember  was  rocked  in;  there  is  the 
ruin  of  the  bedstead  he  died  on ;  that  ugly  slanting  contrivance 
used  to  be  put  under  his  pillow  in  the  days  when  his  breath 
came  hard ;  there  is  his  old  chair  with  both  arms  gone,  symbol 
of  the  desolate  time  when  he  had  nothing  earthly  left  to  lean 
on ;  there  is  the  large  wooden  reel  which  the  blear-eyed  old 
deacon  sent  the  minister's  lady,  who  thanked  him  graciously, 
and  twirled  it  smilingly,  and  in  fitting  season  bowed  it  out  de- 
cently to  the  limbo  of  troublesome  conveniences.  And  there  are 
old  leather  portmanteaus,  like  stranded  porpoises,  their  mouths 
gaping  in  gaunt  hunger  for  the  food  with  which  they  used  to  be 
gorged  to  bulging  repletion  ;  and  old  brass  andirons,  waiting 
until  time  shall  revenge  them  on  their  paltry  substitutes,  and 
they  shall  have  their  own  again,  and  bring  with  them  the  fore- 
stick  and  the  back-log  of  ancient  days ;  and  the  empty  churn, 
with  its  idle  dasher,  which  the  Nancys  and  Phcebes,  who  have 
left  their  comfortable  places  to  the  Bridgets  and  Norahs,  used 
to  handle  to  good  purpose ;  and  the  brown,  shaky  old  spinning- 
wheel,  which  was  running,  it  may  be,  in  the  days  when  they 
were  hanging  the  Salem  witches. 

Under  the  dark  and  haunted  garret  were  attic  chambers 
which  themselves  had  histories. 

The  southeast  chamber  was  the  Library  Hospital.  Every 
scholar  should  have  a  book  infirmary  attached  to  his  library. 
There  should  find  a  peaceable  refuge  the  many  books,  invalids 
from  their  birth,  which  are  sent  "  with  the  best  regards  of  the 
Author ;  "  the  respected,  but  unpresentable  cripples  which  have 
lost  a  cover ;  the  odd  volumes  of  honored  sets  which  go  mourn- 
ing all  their  days  for  their  lost  brother ;  the  school-books  which 
have  been  so  often  the  subjects  of  assault  and  battery,  that  they 
look  as  if  the  police  court  must  know  them  by  heart;  these, 
and  still  more  the  pictured  story-books,  beginning  with  Mother 
Goose  (which  a  dear  old  friend  of  mine  has  just  been  amusing 
his  philosophic  leisure  with  turning  most  ingeniously  and  hap- 
pily into  the  tongues  of  Virgil  and  Homer),  will  be  precious 
mementos  by  and  by,  when  children  and  grandchildren  come 
along. 

The  rooms  of  the  second  story,  the  chambers  of  birth  and 
death,  are  sacred  to  silent  memories. 


46  THE  GAMBREL-ROOFED  HOUSE. 

Let  us  go  down  to  the  ground  floor.  I  should  have  begun 
with  this,  but  that  the  historical  reminiscences  of  the  old  house 
have  been  recently  told  in  a  most  interesting  memoir  by  a  dis- 
tinguished student  of  our  local  history.  I  retain  my  doubts 
about  those  "  dents  "  on  the  floor  of  the  right-hand  room,  "  the 
study "  of  successive  occupants,  said  to  have  been  made  by 
the  butts  of  the  Continental  militia's  firelocks,  but  this  was  the 
cause  the  story  told  me  in  childhood  laid  them  to.  That  mili- 
tary consultations  were  held  in  that  room,  when  the  house  was 
General  Ward's  headquarters,  that  the  Provincial  generals  and 
colonels  and  other  men  of  war  there  planned  the  movement 
which  ended  in  the  fortifying  of  Bunker's  Hill,  that  Warren 
slept  in  the  house  the  night  before  the  battle,  that  President 
Langdon  went  forth  from  the  western  door  and  prayed  for 
God's  blessing  on  the  men  just  setting  forth  on  their  bloody 
expedition,  —  all  these  things  have  been  told,  and  perhaps  none 
of  th€m  need  be  doubted. 

It  was  a  great  happiness  to  have  been  born  in  an  old  house 
haunted  by  such  recollections,  with  harmless  ghosts  walking  its 
corridors,  with  fields  of  waving  grass  and  trees  and  singipg 
birds,  and  that  vast  territory  of  four  or  five  acres  around  it  to 
give  a  child  the  sense  that  he  was  born  to  a  noble  principality. 

Note.  —  The  Editor  cannot  resist  the  impulse  to  express  his  suspicion  that 
the  "  ugly  slanting  contrivance,"  mentioned  on  page  45,  was  "  the  patent 
bedstead  and  the  machinery  pertaining  to  it,"  described  in  the  records  of 
the  Cambridge  Humane  Society,  of  which  Dr.  Abiel  Holmes  was  so  long 
president,  as  having  been  bought  in  1816.  It  is  pleasant  to  believe  that 
after  a  long  and  beneficent  ministry  to  "  the  indigent  sick,"  it  found  an  ap- 
propriate resting-place  itself  in  the  Poet's  garret.  See  page  270  of  the 
present  volume. 


CAMBRIDGE  COMMON. 

By  EX-MAYOR  CHARLES  H.  SAUNDERS. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  spots  in  our  historic  city  is  the 
public  Common  in  Ward  One,  situated  on  Massachusetts  Ave- 
nue, with  Harvard  College  on  one  side  and  Eadcliffe  CoUege 
on  the  other.  This  tract  of  about  ten  acres  was  set  apart  by 
the  Proprietors  of  Common  Lands  for  public  uses  from  the  ear- 
liest settlement  of  the  town.  The  title,  however,  was  not  for- 
mally transferred  to  the  town  until  November  20,  1769,  when 
at  a  meeting  of  the  proprietors  it  was  voted,  "  That  all  the  com- 
mon lands  belonging  to  the  Proprietors,  fronting  the  College, 
commonly  called  the  Town  Commons,  be  and  the  same  are 
hereby  granted  to  the  town  of  Cambridge  to  be  used  as  a  train- 
ing field,  to  lie  undivided  and  to  remain  for  that  use  forever, 
provided,  nevertheless,  that  if  the  said  town  should  dispose  of, 
grant  or  appropriate  the  same  or  any  part  thereof  at  any  time 
hereafter,  to  or  for  any  other  use  than  that  aforementioned, 
then  and  in  such  case  the  whole  of  the  premises  hereby 
granted  to  said  town  shall  revert  to  the  Proprietors  granting  the 
same,  and  the  present  grant  shall  thereupon  be  deemed  null  and 
void." 

As  early  as  1636,  the  annual  elections  of  the  colony  for  the 
choice  of  Governor,  Deputy-Governor,  and  Assistants  were  held 
under  a  large  oak-tree  which  stood  on  the  easterly  side  of  the 
Common,  opposite  Holmes  Place.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  these  elections  took  place  May  17,  1637,  the  contest  being 
between  Governor  Harry  Vane  and  Ex-Governor  John  Win- 
throp.  The  day  was  clear  and  warm,  when,  at  one  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  the  freemen  of  the  colony  gathered  in  groups 
about  this  tree.  Most  of  the  noted  men  of  the  colony,  includ- 
ing the  magistrates  and  clergy,  were  among  the  large  number 
present.  Governor  Vane,  in  English  fashion,  beneath  the  open 
sky,  announced  the  purpose  of  the  meeting  to  be  the  annual 


48  CAMBRIDGE  COMMON. 

election.  Great  excitement  prevailed,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
tumult,  Rev.  John  Wilson,  minister  of  the  First  Church  in 
Boston,  climbed  the  trunk  of  the  wide-spreading  oak,  and, 
clinging  to  one  of  its  branches,  began  vehemently  to  address  the 
meeting,  exhorting  the  freemen  to  look  well  to  their  charter 
and  consider  carefully  the  work  of  the  day,  which  was  the  choos- 
ing of  their  magistrates.  Governor  Vane's  party  objecting  to 
an  immediate  election,  Winthrop,  as  deputy-governor,  declared 
that  the  majority  should  decide,  and  put  the  question  himself. 
A  majority  was  clearly  in  favor  of  proceeding  at  once  to  an 
election.  Governor  Vane  now  gave  way  and  allowed  the  elec- 
tion to  proceed.  It  resulted  in  the  complete  defeat  of  Vane's 
party,  and  the  youthful  governor,  disappointed  and  crestfallen, 
shortly  after  sailed  for  England,  never  to  return.  Vane  was  the 
youngest  person  ever  elected  governor  of  Massachusetts,  having 
been  but  twenty-four  years  old  at  the  time.  On  his  return  to 
England,  he  joined  the  party  opposed  to  King  Charles,  and, 
soon  after  the  Eestoration,  was  tried  for  high  treason  and  be- 
headed. It  is  expected  that  an  oak  will  be  planted  this  year 
by  the  Park  Commissioners  on  the  site  of  the  original  tree, 
thus  adding  one  more  instructive  reminder  of  the  early  days  of 
the  colony. 

In  1740,  Rev.  George  Whitefield  visited  Cambridge,  and, 
having  been  refused  the  use  of  the  meeting-house,  preached  sev- 
eral times  under  a  large  elm-tree  at  the  northwesterly  corner  of 
the  Common,  to  audiences  estimated  at  thousands,  and  ever  after 
the  elm  was  known  as  the  "  Whitefield  tree."  It  remained 
standing  until  1855,  when  it  was  removed  by  the  city. 

This  Common  was  famous  also  as  the  place  selected  by  the 
yeomanry  of  Middlesex  on  which  to  assemble  on  every  occa- 
sion of  public  emergency.  On  Thursday,  September  1,  1774, 
Governor  Gage  sent  four  companies  of  troops  in  thirteen  boats 
up  the  Mystic  River,  and  seized  two  hundred  and  fifty  half- 
barrels  of  powder,  being  the  whole  stock  belonging  to  the  col- 
ony, in  the  old  powder-house,  still  standing,  at  Medford,  and 
removed  it  to  Castle  William,  now  Fort  Independence,  in  Bos- 
ton Harbor.  A  detachment  also  went  to  Old  Cambridge  and 
carried  off  two  fieldpieces.  These  proceedings  caused  great 
indignation,  and  on  the  following  day  more  than  two  thousand 
men  of  Middlesex  assembled  here  to  consult  in  regard  to  this 
insult  to  the  people.     From  the  Common  they  marched  to  the 


LEAVING  FOR  BUNKER  HILL.  49 

coui't-house  in  Harvard  Square,  and  compelled  three  council- 
ors, Oliver,  Danforth,  and  Lee,  and  the  high  sheriff  of  the 
county,  to  resign  their  offices. 

On  June  16,  1775,  orders  were  given  for  one  thousand  men 
to  parade  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  on  the  Common,  with 
packs  and  blankets,  and  provisions  for  twenty-four  hours,  to- 
gether with  all  the  intrenching  tools  in  the  Cambridge  camp. 
That  night,  Colonel  William  Prescott,  clad  in  a  simple  imiform, 
with  a  blue  coat  and  three-cornered  hat,  took  command.  The 
men  were  drawn  up  in  line  and  marched  to  the  small  common 
on  Holmes  Place.  At  a  signal,  amid  profound  silence,  Presi- 
dent Langdon  of  Harvard  College,  standing  upon  the  steps  of 
the  Holmes  mansion,  the  headquarters  of  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety,  offered  an  earnest  prayer  for  the  success  of  the 
patriots.  He  closed  as  follows  :  "  Go  with  them,  O  our  Father, 
keep  them  as  in  the  hollow  of  Thy  hand,  cover  them  with  Thy 
protecting  care,  and  bring  them  back  to  us  victorious."  At 
nine  o'clock,  without  uniforms,  and  with  no  arms  except  fowl- 
ing-pieces without  bayonets,  and  with  only  a  limited  supply  of 
powder  and  bullets,  they  marched  in  silence  down  the  road  to 
Charlestown  for  Bunker  Hill.  Two  sergeants  carrying  dark 
lanterns  were  a  few  paces  in  front,  and  the  intrenching  tools 
in  carts  brought  up  the  rear.  Few  of  the  men  were  aware  of 
the  object  of  the  expedition  until  they  halted  at  Charlestown 
Neck.  Here  Major  3rooks  and  General  Putnam  joined  them, 
and  the  main  body,  together  with  a  fatigue  party  of  two  hun- 
dred Connecticut  troops,  marched  over  to  Bunker  Hill,  and 
about  midnight  began  their  work. 

This  Common  contained  also  the  famous  elm  under  which 
Washington  took  command  of  the  Continental  Army.  On  his 
arrival  at  Cambridge  in  1775,  he  found  upwards  of  nine  thou- 
sand militia  encamped  here  in  tents,  and  occupying  also  the 
college  buildings  and  Christ  Church.  On  the  morning  of  July 
3,  under  escort  of  his  staff  and  the  officers  of  the  army,  Wash- 
ington marched  from  w^hat  is  now  the  old  President's  House  in 
Harvard  Square,  then  occupied  as  his  headquarters,  to  the  elm 
on  the  Common.  The  army  was  drawn  up  in  line  under  com- 
mand of  General  Artemas  Ward,  who  read  Washington's  com- 
mission to  the  assembled  multitude,  and  made  proclamation  of 
the  same  to  the  army.  Washington  then  advanced  a  few  paces, 
made  a  brief  address,  drew  his  sword,  and  assumed  the  com- 


60  CAMBRIDGE  COMMON. 

mand,  which  he  held  until  the  treaty  of  peace  was  signed,  and 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  acknowledged  by  Eng- 
land. 

In  October,  1789,  Washington,  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  made  his  last  tour  through  New  England.  At  Weston, 
October  23,  he  was  met  by  a  company  of  horse  from  Cambridge, 
and  escorted  to  this  Common.  On  arrival,  he  was  saluted  with 
salvos  of  artillery  under  charge  of  General  Brooks,  who  met 
him  at  the  head  of  about  one  thousand  militia.  Soon  after,  he 
left  the  Common,  and  proceeded  to  Harvard  Hall,  to  meet  the 
officers  of  the  college,  who  had  assembled  to  receive  him. 

One  hundred  years  ago,  the  college  Commencement  was  the 
great  holiday  of  the  State,  and  large  numbers  from  the  sur- 
rounding towns  began  to  congregate  here  on  the  first  day  of  the 
week.  The  Common  was  completely  covered  with  tents,  and 
every  variety  of  show  and  exhibition,  which  continued  for  the 
entire  week.  This  outside  display  greatly  overshadowed  the 
exercises  of  the  college. 

After  much  contention,  authority  was  obtained  from  the  Gen- 
eral Court,  June  5,  1830,  to  inclose  and  beautify  these  grounds. 
The  work  was  completed  at  private  expense  in  1832.  This  Com- 
mon, so  finely  located  in  the  centre  of  a  large  and  growing 
population,  is  justly  the  pride  of  the  city.  Its  value  for  recrea- 
tion and  the  health  and  comfort  of  our  citizens  can  hardly  be 
overestimated. 

Upon  the  urgent  appeal  of  the  mayor  of  the  city  in  1868  and 
1869,  in  both  of  his  inaugurals,  the  city  council  decided  to  erect 
a  monument  upon  the  Common  in  honor  of  the  soldiers  and 
sailors  of  Cambridge,  who  gave  up  their  lives  in  the  War  of 
the  Rebellion.  The  corner-stone  of  the  memorial  was  laid 
June  17,  1869,  with  appropriate  ceremonies,  the  mayor  making 
the  principal  address,  after  which  the  bells  were  rung  and  na- 
tional airs  played  by  the  band  and  chimed  upon  the  bells  in 
Christ  Church.  The  exercises  were  closed  by  the  firing  of  a 
national  salute.  A  roll  of  honor  with  the  names  engrossed 
on  parchment,  of  all  the  men  sent  by  Cambridge  to  the 
war,  was  deposited  with  other  documents  in  the  copper  box  in 
the  corner-stone.  The  monument  was  finished  the  following 
spring,  and  dedicated  July  13,  1870.  The  exercises  included 
an  address  by  the  mayor  and  an  oration  by  Rev.  Alexander 
McKenzie. 


THREE  HUGE   WAR-DOGS.  51 

On  May  1,  1876,  a  centennial  tree,  raised  from  the  seed  of 
the  Washington  Elm  by  Mr.  John  Owen,  was  presented  to  the 
city,  and  planted  on  the  westerly  side  of  the  Common  with  suit- 
able exercises.  Several  thousand  persons  were  present,  together 
with  the  city  government,  and  among  the  features  of  the  occa- 
sion were  an  address  by  the  mayor  and  an  original  hymn  sung 
by  the  children  of  the  public  schools. 

In  1882,  a  fine  bronze  statue  of  John  Bridge,  in  Puritan 
costume,  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  early  settlers  of 
the  town,  selectman  from  1635  to  1652,  and  representative  for 
several  terms  in  the  General  Court,  and  deacon  of  the  First 
Church,  was  presented  to  the  city  by  his  descendant,  Samuel  J. 
Bridge,  and  erected  in  the  northeasterly  corner  of  the  Common. 
It  was  dedicated  November  28,  after  an  interesting  address  by 
Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  and  remarks  by  the 
mayor.  President  Eliot,  and  General  Charles  Devens. 

Each  Memorial  Day  finds  a  large  concourse  assembled  around 
the  soldiers'  monument  with  the  members  of  the  various  posts 
of  the  Grand  Army,  to  listen  to  eulogy  and  song,  while  the  early 
flowers  of  spring  are  liberally  strewed  about  it.  As  the  throng 
passes  from  this  interesting  spot,  the  question  is  often  asked : 
"  What  is  the  history  of  these  cannon  that  are  grouped  around 
the  monument  ?  "  These  three  huge  war-dogs  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  city  by  a  vote  of  the  legislature,  passed 
March  31,  1875,  as  follows :  "  Resolved,  That  there  be  granted 
and  transferred  to  the  city  of  Cambridge  the  three  old  Brit- 
ish cannon  and  their  carriages  now  in  the  State  Arsenal  yard 
in  said  city,  provided  said  city  shall  furnish  a  suitable  platform 
for  them  in  the  Cambridge  Common,  the  first  camp  ground  of 
the  Revolution,  and  keep  said  cannon  thereon  in  good  condition 
forever."  These  cannon  were  about  to  be  transferred  to  the 
state  groimds  at  Framingham,  but  the  passage  of  this  vote 
gave  them  a  permanent  place  on  the  Common.  Two  of  them 
are  British  guns,  and  have  the  broad  arrow-mark  of  England. 
The  other,  probably  taken  at  Quebec  in  1745,  is  of  French 
manufacture.  All  bear  evidence  of  great  age.  They  belong 
to  those  captured  by  Ethan  Allen  at  Crown  Point  in  1775, 
which  were  ordered  to  be  transported  to  Cambridge  to  be  used 
in  the  siege  of  Boston. 

General  Knox  was  a  great  favorite  of  Washington,  and  to 
him  was  given  the  execution  of  the  order  to  remove  one  hun- 


62  CAMBRIDGE   COMMON. 

dred  of  the  heavy  cannon,  captured  by  Allen,  from  Crown  Point 
to  Cambridge.  The  cannon  and  mortars  were  loaded  on  forty- 
two  strong  sleds,  and  dragged  slowly  along  by  eighty  yoke  of 
oxen.  The  route  was  from  Lake  George  to  Kinderhook  in  New 
York,  and  thence  by  way  of  Great  Barrington  to  Springfield, 
where  fresh  oxen  were  provided.  The  roads  were  bad,  and 
the  train  could  not  proceed  without  snow.  Fortunately,  the 
roads  soon  became  passable,  and  the  strange  procession  wound 
its  tedious  way  through  the  hills  of  western  Massachusetts  down 
to  the  sea.  The  cannon  were  too  cumbersome  for  field  use,  but 
were  especially  adapted  for  siege-guns,  which  Washington  stood 
greatly  in  need  of  for  the  seven  miles  of  redoubts  around  Bos- 
ton. After  the  British  evacuated  Boston,  the  cannon  were  left 
mounted  in  the  forts  overlooking  the  city,  and  these  are  the 
remnants  of  those  Revolutionary  relics.  The  French  piece 
probably  came  into  possession  of  the  British  at  the  conquest 
of  Canada,  and  was  transferred  to  Crown  Point  for  its  defense 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution. 

We  have  thus  in  these  cannon  three  valuable  relics  which, 
under  Washington,  were  used  for  our  defense,  and  they  remind 
us  forcibly  of  the  remote  past  under  the  colonial  government. 
Although  unfitted  for  use  in  war,  they  have  at  last,  by  the 
courtesy  of  the  State,  found  an  appropriate  resting-place,  and 
are  destined  to  keep  peaceful  vigil  through  the  dim  future  over 
the  first  camp  ground  of  the  Revolution,  —  the  spot  where 
Washington  and  his  generals  organized  that  gallant  army  which, 
after  years  of  struggle  and  vicissitude,  won  for  the  nation  a 
glorious  victory. 


CAMBRIDGE   A   CITY. 

By  GEORGE   RUFUS   COOK. 

"  Dante  might  choose  his  home  in  all  the  wide,  beautiful  world ;  but  to 
be  out  of  the  streets  of  Florence  was  exile  to  him.  Socrates  never  cared  to 
go  beyond  the  bounds  of  Athens.  The  great  universal  heart  welcomes  the 
city  as  a  natural  growth  of  the  eternal  forces."  —  F,  B.  Sanborn. 

" '  Rome,  Venice,  Cambridge  ! '  I  take  it  for  an  ascending  scale,  Rome 
being  the  first  step  and  Cambridge  the  glowing  apex.  But  you  would  n't 
know  Cambridge  —  with  its  railroad,  and  its  water-works,  and  its  new 
houses." — J.R.Lowell.     [1856.] 

There  were  three  memorable  Cambridge  days  in  1846.  On 
the  17th  of  March,  Governor  Briggs  signed  the  legislative  act, 
which  incorporated  the  City  of  Cambridge.  On  the  30th  day 
of  the  same  month,  the  voters  of  Cambridge  adopted  this  act. 
On  May  4,  the  first  city  government  was  inaugurated,  and  the 
career  of  Cambridge  as  a  chartered  municipality  began. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  indicate  the  progress 
which  Cambridge  has  made  in  municipal  unity,  and  the  growth 
and  prosperity  which  have  resulted  from  municipal  action  and 
direction,  rather  than  to  dwell  upon  the  results  of  private  effort 
during  the  past  fifty  years.  In  other  chapters  of  this  volume, 
other  writers  have  told  of  the  achievements  in  the  field  of  pri- 
vate enterprise  ;  but  here  the  work  of  the  people  as  a  municipal 
organism  will  be  described,  although  necessarily  in  a  brief 
manner. 

Compared  with  European  standards  of  highly  developed 
municipal  life,  Cambridge  has  few  great  results  to  show  for  its 
fifty  years  of  charter  existence  ;  but  as  a  type  of  the  modem 
American  city  of  the  class  approximating  100,000  population, 
it  is  of  special  interest.  Here  the  student  of  American  munici- 
pal methods  may  trace  the  rise  and  sure  progress  of  a  fine  civic 
spirit ;  here  may  be  seen  the  gradual  abandonment  of  those 
sectional  jealousies  so  characteristic  of  American  towns  a  half 


54  CAMBRIDGE  A   CITY. 

century  and  more  ago,  and  the  progress  of  the  spirit  of  munici- 
pal unity  which  is  taking  its  place.  If  a  genius  for  bold  and 
comprehensive  schemes  for  the  development  of  the  city's  natural 
resources,  through  the  united  and  public  action  of  the  people, 
cannot  be  pointed  to  as  the  characteristic,  so  far,  of  the  charter 
life  of  Cambridge,  there  can  be  found,  at  least,  hopeful  signs  all 
through  the  past  fifty  years  of  an  evolution  of  the  municipal  idea 
which  is  now  beginning  to  make  Cambridge  both  prosperous  and 
famous.  Well-directed,  organized  municipal  energy  has  thus 
far  nowhere  characterized  the  growth  of  American  municipali- 
ties ;  but  in  the  new  civic  awakening  which  is  now  taking  place 
in  our  country,  in  the  application  of  scientific  methods  to 
the  solution  of  the  new  problems  created  by  dense  population 
groups,  and  especially  in  the  permanent  elimination  from  its 
municipal  life  of  that  irritating  factor,  the  legalized  public 
dram-shop,  Cambridge  may  well  be  pointed  out  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  highest  standard  yet  reached  by  American  urban 
dwellers. 

Fifty  years  ago,  that  portion  of  the  New  England  people 
which  lived  within  the  limits  of  Cambridge  received  the  idea  — 
although  faintly  and  imperfectly  at  first  —  of  a  municipal  organ- 
ism which  should  be  responsible  for  the  general  welfare  of  the 
community.  It  was  by  no  means  a  Cambridge  idea,  and  the 
people  appear  to  have  adopted  it  with  reluctance,  and  only  after 
long  debate.  Boston  had  had  a  charter  life  of  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  before  the  movement  to  imitate  its  example  began 
in  the  neighboring  towns.  Of  these  Roxbury  led  the  way,  its 
charter  having  been  granted  by  the  legislature  and  accepted  by 
its  people  five  days  before  the  corresponding  action  was  taken 
in  Cambridge.  A  year  later,  Charlestown  illustrated  the  general 
tendency  by  likewise  becoming  a  city.  Before  this  charter  agi- 
tation of  1846,  there  had  been  no  new  cities  in  Massachusetts 
since  the  incorporation  of  Salem  and  Lowell  in  1836.  But  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  Boston's  three  little  neighbors.  New  Bed- 
ford became  a  city  in  1847,  Worcester  in  1848,  and  Lynn  in 
1850.  Then  came  Newburyport  in  1851,  Springfield  in  1852, 
Lawrence  in  1853,  Fall  River  in  1854,  and  so  the  list  has  length- 
ened, year  by  year.  With  the  exception  of  the  three  early  ven- 
tures of  Boston,  Salem,  and  Lowell,  the  ei*a  of  Massachusetts 
municipalities  may  be  said  to  have  begun  in  1846. 

The  rapid  increase  in  the  population  and  property  of  Cam- 


A  MORE  PERFECT  UNION.  55 

bridge  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  adoption  of  the 
charter  was  the  main  reason  for  the  change  in  its  form  of 
government.  From  the  national  census  of  1840  to  the  assess- 
ors' census  of  1845  there  had  been  an  increase  of  48  per  cent. 
in  the  population,  —  a  larger  percentage  than  is  recorded  in  any 
other  five-year  period  of  the  history  of  Cambridge.  With  this 
remarkable  growth  in  population  there  had  also  been  an  increase 
of  32  per  cent,  in  the  town's  valuation.  In  1845,  the  adminis- 
trative methods  of  the  old  town-meeting  form  of  government 
were  strained  to  meet  the  community  needs  of  12,490  people, 
and  even  then  these  needs  were  inadequately  supplied. 

We  are  not  now  concerned,  however,  so  much  in  the  outward 
change  in  the  form  of  government  made  by  the  people  in  1846, 
as  we  are  with  the  new  conception  of  municipal  life  which  had 
its  birth  at  that  time.  The  great  increase  in  population  and 
wealth  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  charter  year  had 
taken  place  largely  in  Cambridgeport  and  East  Cambridge. 
The  tendency  of  the  centre  of  population  toward  West  Boston 
Bridge  had  always  been  regarded  with  ill  favor  by  the  conser- 
vative people  who  formed  the  colony  around  Harvard  College, 
and  when,  in  1832,  this  tendency  was  emphasized  by  the  erec- 
tion of  the  new  town-house  on  Norfolk  Street  and  the  consequent 
final  adjournment  of  the  town  meeting  from  the  Old  Village  to 
the  Port,  open  and  determined  attempts  to  divide  the  town  were 
made.  These  efforts  to  secede  were  met,  on  the  other  side,  by 
a  determination  to  effect  "  a  more  perfect  union."  And  thus  a 
desire  for  better  municipal  service  and  a  closer  municipal  unity 
found  expression  on  the  30th  day  of  March,  1846,  in  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  charter  by  a  vote  of  645  to  224. 

But  the  new  desire  found  many  discouragements.  To  unify 
the  apparently  diverse  interests  of  the  Old  Village,  the  Port, 
and  the  Point,  fifty  years  ago,  was  no  easy  task.  The  division 
of  the  young  city  into  separate  communities  —  "  unavoidably 
accented  by  Nature,"  as  one  writer  has  said  —  was  so  marked 
that  it  was  not  surprising  to  find  those  who  believed  that  the 
villages  had  no  common  interests  which  demanded  a  common 
government.  Communication  between  the  three  communities 
was  slow,  and  at  some  seasons  of  the  year  even  difficult.  In  the 
school  system  the  idea  of  town  division  had  been  carefully  pre- 
served, even  to  the  extent  of  maintaining  three  high  schools. 
The  fire  department,  although  a  unit  in  name,  was  composed 


66  CAMBRIDGE  A   CITY. 

of  volunteers,  who  not  infrequently  emphasized  their  sections 
to  the  detriment  of  the  town.  Thus  through  all  the  departments 
of  the  young  city  government  the  sectional  idea  was  conspicu- 
ous, and  the  facts  here  cited  as  illustrations  can  be  easily  sup- 
plemented in  large  numbers  by  the  recollection  of  any  old 
resident. 

The  desire  for  better  municipal  service  was  likewise  met  by 
many  discouragements.  If  we  have  in  mind  modern  municipal 
standards,  we  must  confess  that  Cambridge  began  its  career  as 
a  city  poorly  equipped  to  provide  for  the  common  needs  of  the 
people.  No  one  now  questions  that  the  building  and  mainte- 
nance of  bridges  across  the  Charles  River  is  a  proper  municipal 
function ;  yet  in  1846,  instead  of  being  city  property,  the  two 
principal  bridges  to  Boston  were  owned  by  private  corporations, 
authorized  to  exact  tolls  for  their  use.  Not  until  1858,  and 
when  tolls  amounting  to  upwards  of  two  millions  of  dollars  had 
been  paid,  did  these  bridges  become  free  municipal  property. 

It  would  require  a  long  story  to  tell  all  that  the  young  city 
of  Cambridge  failed  to  provide  for  its  people  which  now,  by 
universal  assent,  is  demanded  of  every  modern  municipality. 
We  may  indicate  some  of  these  failures,  in  the  briefest  possible 
way.  The  streets  were  unpaved,  unmacadamized,  uncurbed, 
unlighted,  and  unprotected  from  furious  and  reckless  driving 
by  Boston  pleasure-seekers  inspired  with  Cambridge  "  refresh- 
ments." One  of  the  most  conspicuous  acts  of  Mayor  Green 
during  his  first  year  was  to  break  up  the  common  practice  of 
pasturing  cows  in  the  streets.  The  city  gave  to  the  citizens  but 
little  protection  from  the  acts  of  lawless  j)ersons,  and  while  it 
cannot  be  said  that  lawlessness  prevailed,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  safety  of  person  and  property  then  depended  far  more 
upon  individual  vigilance  and  less  upon  municipal  police  protec- 
tion than  at  present.  The  police  department  was  organized  in 
the  summer  of  1846. 

Protection  from  fire  was  inadequate,  —  extremely  so,  when 
modern  standards  of  efficiency  are  taken  for  comparison.  In 
1847,  the  old  volunteer  fire  companies  were  superseded  by 
an  organization  of  which  our  present  fire  department  is  the 
culmination. 

In  1846,  Cambridge  was  a  city  of  wells  and  cesspools,  built 
and  maintained  by  the  individual  real-estate  owners.  The 
building  of  the  first  sewer  by  assessment  was  under  the  town  in 


EARLY  EXPENSES. 


57 


1845  ;  but  the  ordinance  in  relation  to  common  sewers,  estab- 
lishing a  sewer  system,  was  not  passed  until  1852.  It  was  in 
1865  —  nineteen  years  after  the  acceptance  of  the  charter  — 
that  the  city  assumed  the  function  of  supplying  drinking-water 
to  its  inhabitants. 

The  new  city  of  1846  had  no  street-cleaning  nor  garbage- 
removal  service.  Its  arrangements  for  the  prevention  of  epi- 
demic diseases  were  crude  and  inadequate.  There  were  few  if 
any  regulations  of  house-building  and  occupancy.  Public  parks 
were  scarcely  dreamed  of.  The  municipal  burial  grounds  were 
forbidding  in  aj)pearance  and  insufficient  in  size.  The  old  town- 
house  was  wholly  inadequate  for  municipal  uses.  There  was  no 
public  library  ;  no  engineering  department ;  no  municipal  am- 
bulance for  the  injured  ;  and  no  free  text-books  for  the  youth. 
And  yet  the  property  of  Cambridge  in  1846  was  taxed  at  the 
rate  of  $5  on  $1000.  It  might,  indeed,  be  a  natural  ques- 
tion to  ask  why  this  comparatively  high  rate  was  necessary,  and 
for  what  purposes  the.  young  city  needed  the  revenue  thus 
raised.  As  an  answer  to  this,  and  also  as  an  indication  of 
what  manner  and  amount  of  service  the  municipal  government 
of  1846  afforded,  the  following  table  of  the  expenses  of  the 
town  and  city  from  March  1,  1846,  to  March  1,  1847,  is 
given :  — 


Almshouse  and  roads   . 

Instruction  of  schools 

Repairs,  etc.,  of  schoolhouses 

Burial  grounds 

Interest  and  bank  discounts 

Poll  tax  to  enginemen 

Bell-ringing 

Repairs  of  bridges     . 

Salaries  of  city  officers 

Police  and  watch 

Fire  department 

Reservoirs  and  drains 

Incidental  expenses 

Fuel  for  schools 

Board  of  health     . 


$11,035.68 

13,089.05 

1,865.26 

108.38 

1,376.00 

177.00 

135.00 

1,493.23 

1,900.00 

2,017.71 

2,751.61 

13.71 

4,685.93 

30.12 

46.66 

$40,725.34 


If  the  population  of  Cambridge  in  its  first  charter  year  is 
estimated  at  13,000,  the  amount  expended  per  inhabitant  by  the 
municipality  for  all  the  service  rendered  was  83.13.     By  refer- 


58 


CAMBRIDGE  A    CITY. 


ence  to  this  table  of  expenditures  it  will  be  seen  what  the  con- 
ception of  municipal  government  was  in  1846.  Cambridge  held 
itself  responsible  for  the  education  of  its  youth  and  for  the  care 
of  its  destitute.  There  was  also  a  languid  attempt  to  furnish 
protection  to  the  property  and  lives  of  its  inhabitants  through 
police  and  fire  departments,  and  here,  in  great  measure,  the 
functions  of  a  municipal  government,  as  then  conceived,  ended. 
All  other  means  of  administering  to  the  necessities,  the  comfort, 
or  the  happiness  of  the  people,  were  left  to  individual  or  corpo- 
rate effort,  and  what  those  agencies  failed  to  supply  was  left 
unsupplied. 

Let  us  now  pass  to  a  consideration  of  the  present  attainments 
of  the  municipality  of  Cambridge.  We  have  seen  the  expenses 
of  the  first  charter  year  in  detail.  It  will  be  well  also  to  ex- 
amine the  municipal  expenses  of  the  year  1895,  which  closes 
the  first  half  century.     They  were  as  follows  :  — 


Ambulance  department 

Assessors'  department 

Auditing  department 

Bridge  department 

Cemetery  department     . 

City  clerk  department 

City  messenger  department    . 

Civil  service  department     . 

Clerk  of  committee  department 

Election  expenses 

Engineering  department 

Executive  department 

Fire  department     . 

Health  department 

Incidental  expenses 

Inspection  of  milk  and  vinegar  . 

Inspection  of  provisions 

Inspection  of  wires     . 

Interest  ..... 

Lamps  department     . 

Land  damages 

Law  department 

Poor  relief      .... 

Parks  

Plumbers'  examiner's  department 
Police  department 
Public  library 
Public  buildings 
School  maintenance 


.  $2,269.15 

12,797.40 

.     3,352.03 

12,473.03 

.   16,999.40 

6,404.25 

,     2,645.92 

275.00 

.     3,708.47 

9,476.60 

.   22,743.52 

5,362.15 

.   82,171.99 

11,482.98 

.   14,514.68 

1,388.14 

747.89 

10,399.82 

118,099.84 

69,926.61 

.   24,275.13 

3,970.45 

100,841.33 

222,475.05 

153.81 

110,784.22 

21,064.83 

154,289.89 

258,766.08 


MR.  BRYCE'S  TESTS.  69 

Sealer  of  weights  and  measures          ....  1,491.29 

Sewers    .........  87,553.59 

Sinking  fund        ........  106,940.00 

State  aid 23,159.91 

Stationery  and  printing 2,843.14 

Street  department 223,205.21 

Treasury 13,471.50 

Water-works 758,054.81 

Total $2,520,579.11 

The  state  census  of  1895  found  the  population  of  Cambridge 
to  be  81,643.  At  the  close  of  the  half  century,  therefore,  we 
find  the  municipal  expenses  to  be  $30.87  per  inhabitant,  as 
compared  with  $3.13  for  the  first  year.  There  were  in  1895 
extraordinary  expenses  for  the  extension  of  the  water-supply 
system  and  for  parks,  which  raise  the  total  municipal  expendi- 
tures above  the  average  of  the  years  immediately  preceding ;  but 
yet  this  sum  of  $30.87  may  fairly  be  set  against  the  $3.13  as 
illustrating  the  extent  which  has  been  reached  in  the  munici- 
palization of  the  people's  energy  and  resources.  It  is  also 
necessary  to  state  in  this  connection,  that  the  city  at  the  end 
of  its  fifty  years  of  charter  life  owns  real  estate  valued  at  about 
three  millions  of  dollars.  The  net  funded  city  debt,  exclusive 
of  the  water  debt  at  the  close  of  the  fiscal  year  of  1895,  was 
$2,244,183.  The  tax  rate  in  1895  was  $15.70  on  $1,000  of  full 
valuation,  and  the  total  amount  of  real  and  personal  property 
was  $80,911,060.  The  tax  rate  in  1846  was  $5  ;  the  total  val- 
uation $9,312,481,  and  the  city  debt  $22,000.  In  1846,  the 
municipal  debt  amounted  to  .0023  of  the  wealth  of  the  city ; 
in  1895,  the  debt  amounted  to  .0277  of  the  city's  wealth. 

It  was  not  intended  that  this  chapter  should  be  a  compilation 
of  figures,  nor  even  a  mere  directory  of  municipal  improvements. 
It  seems  necessary,  however,  that  these  comparative  statistics 
which  have  been  recorded  should  be  set  down  in  order  that  the 
main  purpose  of  the  chapter  may  be  carried  out.  Mr.  James 
Bryce,  in  his  elaborate  review  of  the  workings  of  American 
municipal  government,  says  :  "  Two  tests  of  practical  efficiency 
may  be  applied  to  the  government  of  a  city  :  What  does  it  pro- 
vide for  the  people,  and  What  does  it  cost  the  people?"  The 
facts  which  have  burdened  this  chapter  will  answer  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  so  far  as  Cambridge  is  concerned,  these  two 
practical  questions. 


60  CAMBRIDGE  A   CITY. 

Considered  historically,  the  fifty  years  of  Cambridge  charter 
life  —  the  working  lifetime  of  a  man  —  has  shown  a  most  grati- 
fying, even  a  wonderful  development  in  municipal  service. 
Considered  comparatively  with  the  present  efficiency  of  other 
cities  in  Massachusetts  and  in  the  other  States,  the  showing 
which  Cambridge  makes  is  also  most  gratifying.  But  this 
chapter  would  be  unduly  prolonged  if  we  were  to  enter  into  a 
study  of  this  latter  point. 

As  for  the  spirit  of  municipal  unity  which  has  so  wonderfully 
developed  in  these  charter  years,  we  may  well  indulge  ourselves 
in  a  further  consideration.  We  have  seen  how  the  spirit  of 
division  and  village  independence  predominated  fifty  years  ago. 
Perhaps,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  the  "  accent "  which 
nature  placed  upon  this  division  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  un- 
fortunate sectional  feeling  which  then  prevailed  and  influenced 
all  municipal  action.  Marshes  and  woodlands  "  interposed, 
made  enemies  of  those  who  else  like  kindred  drops  would 
mingle  into  one."  Bad  roads  —  those  great  obstacles  to  civili- 
zation—  kept  the  Old  Villagers,  the  "Porters,"  and  the 
"  Pointers  "  apart.  Especially  was  this  condition  then  consid- 
ered by  the  residents  of  the  Old  Village  necessary  to  continue 
what  Chronicler  Holmes  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  had 
described  as  "  eminently  combining  the  tranquillity  of  philo- 
sophic solitude  with  the  choicest  pleasures  and  advantages  of 
refined  society."  Years  ago.  Sir  Charles  Dilke  wrote :  "  Our 
English  universities  have  not  about  them  the  classic  repose,  the 
air  of  study,  which  belongs  to  Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  Even 
the  English  Cambridge  has  a  breathing  street  or  two,  and  a 
weekly  market-day ;  while  Cambridge  in  New  England  is  one 
great  academic  grove,  buried  in  a  philosophic  calm  which  our 
universities  cannot  rival  as  long  as  men  resort  to  them  for  other 
purposes  than  work." 

But  the  day  of  village  isolation  and  philosophic  calm  is  passed. 
Gradually  the  boundary  lines  of  the  three  communities  have 
widened  from  the  three  centres  of  activity,  —  like  the  widening 
ripples  from  the  pebbles  cast  into  the  placid  bosom  of  our  Fresh 
Pond,  —  until  these  lines  have  met,  mingled,  and  disappeared. 
Bad  roads  were  made  good ;  street  cars  began  their  civilizing 
mission ;  sidewalks  were  built.  The  playful  plaint  of  Lowell 
in  a  letter  to  Leslie  Stephen  written  in  1871  is  suggestive  of 
the  change :  "  The  city  has  crept  up  to  me,  curbstones  are  feel- 


SECTIONAL  LINES  LOST.  61 

ing  after  and  swooping  upon  the  green  edges  of  the  roads,  and 
the  calf  I  used  to  carry  is  grown  to  a  bull." 

It  is,  of  course,  a  matter  of  opinion  how  far  now  the  old  sec- 
tional feeling  prevails.  It  is  outside  the  scope  of  this  chapter 
to  discuss  the  social  conditions  of  Cambridge,  and  it  might  be 
asserted  by  some  that  in  social  life  the  old  sectional  distinctions 
are  still  maintained.  Yet  even  here  it  must  be  confessed  that 
sectional  feeling  is  now  based  more  upon  a  tradition  than  upon 
any  present  distinction,  and  that  it  is  growing  weaker  as  the 
years  pass.  But  so  far  as  municipal  action  is  concerned,  the 
close  of  the  first  half  century  of  charter  life  finds  sectional 
and  ward  lines  nearly  obliterated.  Especially  is  this  to  be  seen 
in  the  two  greatest  municipal  enterprises  in  which  Cambridge 
ever  engaged. 

To  the  water-supply  system  and  the  park  system,  separate 
chapters  are  devoted  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  A  considera- 
tion of  but  a  single  phase  in  the  development  of  these  enter- 
prises is  here  intended,  and  that  merely  as  an  illustration  of 
municipal  unity  of  action.  The  Water  Board  consists  of  five 
commissioners,  that  number  having  originally  been  fixed  be- 
cause there  were  five  wards  in  the  city.  Yet  seldom,  in  the 
composition  of  this  board,  has  the  ward  representative  idea  been 
insisted  upon,  and  never,  perhaps,  have  ward  considerations 
controlled  the  greater  enterprises  of  this  department  of  city 
works.  In  the  establishment  and  extension  of  the  water-supply 
system  the  needs  of  no  less  a  factor  than  the  city  as  a  whole 
have  been  studied,  and  the  work  has  been  prosecuted  upon  this 
line.  The  same  quality  and  quantity  of  water  (so  far  as  topo- 
graphical conditions  would  permit)  have  flowed  into  the  homes 
of  all  the  wards,  illustrating  the  impartiality  vdth  which  the 
rains  from  heaven  are  said  to  descend  upon  the  just  and  unjust. 
Certainly  the  introduction  and  extension  of  our  water  supply 
has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  development  of  municipal 
unity.  It  is  a  fact  of  much  significance  as  illustrative  of  the 
tendency  in  municipal  life,  that  the  thirteen  thousand  people 
who  fifty  years  ago  drank  from  a  thousand  wells  have  now 
grown  to  eighty  thousand  people,  drinking  from  one  common 
well. 

When,  in  1893,  the  board  of  Park  Commissioners  was  created, 
the  conventional  number  of  five  was  ignored  altogether.  In- 
stead, the  board  was  made  to  consist  of  three  commissioners. 


62  CAMBRIDGE  A   CITY. 

The  work  of  this  board  in  laying  out  a  municipal  system  of 
parks  has  been  upon  as  strictly  a  scientific  basis  as  has  been 
any  of  the  much-praised  work  of  the  European  municipalities. 
The  map  upon  which  the  park  lines  were  drawn  had  no  trace 
of  ward  boundaries.  The  topographical  features  of  the  city  area, 
and  the  recreative  needs  of  the  people  with  reference  only  to 
density  of  population,  are  the  considerations  upon  which  the 
Cambridge  park  system  is  based.  This  is  notable  from  the 
fact  that  all  previous  agitation  for  parks  (and  it  had  been  long 
drawn  out)  was  based  upon  the  ward  idea.  Previous  to  1893, 
the  question  of  parks  was  seldom  discussed  in  a  broader  way 
than  with  reference  to  the  needs  of  a  single  ward. 

Other  lines  of  municipal  work  might  also  be  mentioned  to 
illustrate  the  unity  of  plan  and  action  with  which  the  city  is 
now  prosecuting  its  enterprises ;  but  enough  has  been  written 
to  show  what  has  been  attained,  and  to  indicate  what  may  be 
expected  in  the  future  in  the  application  of  organic  municipal 
energy  in  the  development  of  the  resources  of  Cambridge. 

In  this  sketch  of  Cambridge  municipal  development  nothing 
has  been  said,  individually,  of  those  who  have  occupied  public 
places,  or  who  have  as  private  citizens  been  conspicuous  in  the 
service  which  they  have  rendered  the  city.  It  would  require 
a  long  chapter  merely  to  record  the  names  of  all  those  who 
are  worthy  of  mention  in  the  half  century  of  work  now  closed. 
Unlike  some  other  cities,  no  single  name  stands  above  all  oth- 
ers ;  yet  there  are  not  a  few  names,  any  one  of  which  repre- 
sents long  service,  high  ideals,  rare  intelligence,  and  a  civic  pride 
which,  if  found  in  some  less  favored  community,  would  make  its 
possessor  the  hero  of  a  city's  half  century.  It  would  be  a  privi- 
lege to  dwell  upon  the  service  of  some  of  those  who  have  most 
contributed  to  the  municipal  activities  of  Cambridge,  but  this 
falls  outside  the  purpose  of  the  chapter.  The  writer  must,  how- 
ever, record  the  conviction  that  few  cities  in  our  country  during 
the  past  fifty  years  have  been  so  richly  endowed  with  service  as 
has  Cambridge.  At  the  beginning  of  its  charter  life.  Mayor 
James  D.  Green  set  the  example  of  uprightness,  ability,  and 
faithful  work.  In  a  eulogy  delivered  not  long  before  his  death, 
the  Rev.  Andrew  P.  Peabody  called  attention  to  the  standard 
set  by  the  first  mayor  and  the  faithfulness  with  which  it  had 
been  maintained  by  his  successors,  and,  for  the  most  part,  by 
all  who  have  held  public  office.     The  memory  of  all  this  service 


*EU3    B.  ALOF 


CAMBRIDGE  MAYORS. 


63 


is  indeed  a  rich  inheritance  and  an  inspiration  to  those  who 
take  up  the  work  of  the  next  fifty  years  of  the  municipal  life 
of  Cambridge. 

During  the  fifty  years  of  the  charter,  twenty -two  citizens  have 
served  as  mayor.  The  years  in  which  each  administered  the 
office,  and  also  the  important  personal  facts  regarding  them, 
may  be  gathered  from  the  following  table :  — 


Years  as  Mayor. 

Bom. 

Died. 

Native  of. 

Occupation. 

James  D.  Green. 

1846-47,1853,1860-61. 

1798. 

1882. 

Maiden,  Mass. 

Clergyman. 

Sidney  Willard. 

1848-49-50. 

1780. 

1856. 

Beverly,  Mass. 

Professor. 

George  Stevens. 

1851-52. 

1603. 

1894. 

Norway,  Maine. 

Manufacturer. 

Abrahaiu  Edwards. 

1854. 

1797. 

1870. 

Boston,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

ZebinaL.  Raymond. 

1855-1864. 

1804. 

1872. 

Shutesbury,  Mass. 

Alercbant. 

John  Sargent. 

1856-57-58-59. 

1799. 

1880. 

Hillsboro',  N.  H. 

Chas.  Theo.  Russell. 

1861-62 

1815. 

1896. 

Princeton,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

Geo.  C.  Richardson. 

1863. 

1808. 

1886. 

Royalston,  Mass. 

Mercliant. 

J.  Warren  MerrilL 

1865-66. 

1819. 

1889. 

South  Hampton,  N.  H. 

Merchant. 

Ezra  Parmenter. 

1867. 

1823. 

1883. 

Bostou,  Mass. 

Pliysician. 

Chas.  H.  Saunders. 

1868-69. 

1821. 

Cambridge,  Mass. 

Merchant. 

Hamlin  R.  Harding. 

1870-71. 

1825. 

1889. 

Lunenburg,  Mass. 

Agent. 

Henry  0.  Houghton. 

1872. 

1823. 

1895. 

Sutton,  Vermont. 

Publisher. 

Isaac  Bradford. 

1873-74-75-7C. 

1834. 

Boston,  Mass. 

Mathematician. 

Frank  A.  .Mien. 

1877. 

1835. 

Sanford,  Maine. 

Merchant. 

Sam'l  L.  Montague. 

1878-79. 

1829. 

Montague,  Mass. 

Merchant. 

Jas.  M.  W.  Hall. 

1880. 

1842. 

Boston,  Mass. 

Merchant. 

Jas.  A.  Fox. 

1881-82-83-84. 

1827. 

Boston,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

William  E.  Russell. 

1885-86-87-88. 

1857. 

Cambridge,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

Henry  H.  Gilraore. 

1889-90. 

1832. 

1891. 

Warner,  N.  H. 

Manufacturer. 

Alpheus  B.  Alger. 

1891-92. 

1851. 

1895. 

Lowell,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

Wm.  A.  Bancroft. 

1893-&1-95-96. 

1855. 

Groton,  Mass. 

Lawyer. 

From  the  above  it  will  be  seen  that  all  of  our  mayors  have 
been  New  England  men,  and  that  of  the  entire  number  sixteen 
were  born  in  Massachusetts.  Two  of  the  number  were  born  in 
Cambridge,  and  five  were  Boston  boys.  Sixteen  were  bom 
under  town-meeting  rule,  and  received  their  first  impressions  of 
community  government  in  that  way,  while  the  six  who  were 
born  under  municipal  charter  government  were  familiar  in 
early  life  only  with  the  simple  workings  of  Massachusetts  cities 
in  the  period  before  the  war.  Three  of  our  mayors  were  born 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  one  was  born  one  hundred  and 
sixteen  years  ago.  Of  all  the  number,  three  only  were  born 
since  the  Cambridge  charter  was  adopted.  Six  have  been  law- 
yers, and,  although  it  cannot  be  stated  with  certainty,  it  appears 
that  there  have  been  eight  college  graduates  among  them. 


n. 


LITERARY   LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  HORACE  E.  SCUDDER, 

EDITOR    OF   THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY. 

A  CLEVER  Cambridge  woman  once  said  to  me  that  when  she 
met  a  Cambridge  man,  and  was  a  little  at  a  loss  for  conversa- 
tion, she  would  turn  upon  him  with  the  question,  How  is  your 
book  coming  on  ?  and  the  question  rarely  failed  to  bring  forth 
a  voluble  answer.  Brigadier-generals  were  no  more  common 
in  Washington  during  the  war  than  are  authors  in  Cambridge, 
but  the  former  carried  the  title  in  large  letters,  the  latter  often 
secrete  themselves  behind  some  profession  or  calling  not  osten- 
sibly literary.  It  may  be  a  little  heretical  to  assert  the  fact  in 
a  book  which  celebrates  the  civic  honors  of  Cambridge,  but 
I  am  none  the  less  quite  sure  in  my  own  mind  that  a  large 
part  of  the  attraction  which  Cambridge  has  had  in  the  past  for 
men  of  letters  has  been  its  comparatively  village-like  character. 
Authors  do  not,  it  is  true,  prefer  to  walk  on  a  ten-inch  curb- 
stone, or  jolt  to  Boston  in  an  hourly  omnibus,  yet  the  disad- 
vantages of  a  village  have  had  their  compensation  in  the  larger 
leisure,  the  simpler  social  life,  the  roomier  homes,  which  until 
lately  characterized  Cambridge.  The  city,  to  be  sure,  is  still  a 
way-station  from  the  country  to  Boston,  in  the  matter  of  rail- 
way accommodations,  steam  or  electric,  but  the  open  spaces  are 
closing  up,  the  college  people  meet  more  formally,  and  need 
more  introduction  to  each  other,  city  habits  are  forming,  and  it 
cannot  be  long  before  the  conditions  which  once  charmed  authors 
will  give  way  ;  perhaps  by  that  time  authors  themselves  will  be 
changed  in  their  temper,  and  will  like  to  live  in  a  hurly-burly 
of  elevated  railroads,  great  apartment  houses,  and  everlasting 
chatter. 

When  that  time  comes,  a  few  belated  spirits  will  look  back 
regretfully  to  the  Cambridge  which  called  itself  a  young  city, 
but  in  its  traditions  was  after  all  an  overgrown  village,  and 


68  LITERARY  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

figures  which  are  as  yet  but  slightly  historic  will  rise  to  the 
imagination  as  bringing  the  glory  of  true  literature  to  overshine 
the  town  and  make  it  one  of  those  bright  spots  on  the  airy  globe 
of  the  human  spirit  which  is  so  charted  as  to  make  Concord 
and  Ambleside  more  conspicuous  than,  let  us  say,  Jersey  City 
and  Leeds.  That  fine,  poetic  nature  who  brought  his  sensitive 
English  conscience  to  the  New  England,  where  the  conscience 
had  been  more  sturdily  cultivated,  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  left  a 
tremulous  track  of  light  behind  him  as  he  tarried  awhile  in 
Cambridge,  translating  Plutarch,  laboring  and  making  friends 
with  men  with  whom  he  should  have  continued  to  live,  only  he 
could  not  well  bear  transplanting.  "  We  are  potted  plants  here 
in  Cambridge,"  said  the  witty  Francis  Wharton,  explaining  to 
an  English  visitor  that  the  men  of  whom  he  inquired  were  not 
natives  of  Cambridge,  but  were  drawn  to  it  by  its  university 
and  schools  and  kindred  spirits.  Hither  came  that  poet,  For- 
ceythe  Willson,  who  flashed  forth  a  few  striking  war  lyrics,  but 
lived  almost  in  obscurity  near  Simond's  Hill ;  a  silent  figure, 
scarcely  known  even  to  those  neighbors  who  could  best  appre- 
ciate him.  To  Cambridge  at  a  later  date  came  another  stranger, 
Elisha  Mulford,  who  brought  with  him  the  reputation  built 
upon  "  The  Nation,"  that  masterly  interpretation  of  our  great 
federal  life,  hammered  out  with  toil  in  the  silence  of  his  Penn- 
sylvania home  after  the  war  for  the  Union  was  over  ;  and  here 
he  wrought  upon  that  great  conception  of  "  The  Republic  of 
God,"  making  in  these  books  two  pillars  for  sustaining  the  great 
arch  of  social  philosophy,  an  arch  which  he  surely  would  have 
reared  had  he  lived.  He  came,  as  so  many  others  have  come,  to 
educate  his  children,  debating  long  between  New  Haven,  Exe- 
ter, and  Cambridge,  but  taking  root  in  the  soil  here  when  his 
choice  was  made. 

Others  there  have  been  who  found  their  home  here  naturally 
by  reason  of  the  convenience  of  historic  printing-houses,  and 
who  might  easily  have  worn  paths  to  and  from  their  houses,  as 
they  carried  forward  their  scholarly  pursuits.  For  a  long  time 
the  great  lexicographer,  Joseph  E.  Worcester,  lived  his  retired 
life  where  now  live  the  family  of  the  late  Chauncy  Smith. 
Many  still  youthful  will  recall  the  figure,  alert,  nervous,  and 
almost  furtively  shy,  of  Ezra  Abbot,  skimming  along  the  walk, 
his  eyes  bent  on  his  book,  which  he  read  as  he  walked  ;  the 
deadly  foe  of  error  on  the  printed  page  ;  his  own  work  in  con- 


L(>n<;kki,i,(>vv  IIousk. 


LowELr,  House. 


LONGFELLOW  AND  LOWELL.  69 

struction  as  faultlessly  accurate  as  his  handwriting  was  unmis- 
takably legible.  It  requires  a  somewhat  older  memory  to  recall 
the  courtly  presence  of  Charles  Folsom,  who  well  deserved  the 
English  title  of  corrector  of  the  press,  but  whose  chastening  for 
the  time  seemed  scarcely  joyous  to  the  printer  as  he  waited 
impatiently  for  the  proof-sheets  which  Mr.  Folsom  carried 
around  in  his  pocket  till  he  could,  after  long  search  in  the 
libraries  of  the  neighborhood,  relieve  them  of  possible  errors  of 
statement.  Of  the  same  indefatigable  temper  in  exorcising  the 
black  art  was  George  Nichols,  for  whose  aid  Lowell  stipulated 
when  he  undertook  to  edit  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly."  It  would 
be  hard  to  overestimate  the  value  of  these  two  subterranean 
builders  of  literature.  Their  own  craft  recognized  their  power ; 
every  author  whose  books  passed  through  their  hands  blessed 
them,  with  occasional  lapses,  and  the  reputation  which  the  great 
printing-offices  of  Cambridge  enjoy  is  due  largely  to  the  stand- 
ard which  these  men  raised,  and  to  the  traditions  which  they 
established. 

The  printing-houses  have  been  neighbors  to  the  university,  and 
the  university  has  been  the  mother  or  foster-mother  of  authors. 
And  yet  one  hazards  a  doubt  if  the  enlargement  of  the  uni- 
versity, and  the  specializing  of  its  functions,  is  not  less  favorable 
to  pure  literature  than  was  the  old-time  college,  with  its  high 
regard  for  humane  scholarship.  At  any  rate,  as  we  note  the 
two  most  eminent  American  men  of  letters  connected  with  Har- 
vard, it  is  difficult  not  to  feel  that  they  belonged  rather  with  the 
old  college  than  wdth  the  new  university.  Still,  the  present  is 
never  in  true  perspective,  and  1896  may  yet  read  as  interestingly 
as  1836,  when  LongfeUow  came  to  Cambridge,  or  1855,  when 
Lowell  took  service  in  the  college.  No  town  or  city  can  ever 
be  barren  in  the  world  of  literature  which  has  two  such  names 
as  these  on  its  roll  of  honor,  and  can  hold  within  its  bounds  two 
such  shrines  as  Craigie  House  and  Elmwood.  There  is  indeed  a 
double  wealth  of  association  about  Craigie  House  which  so  heaps 
up  the  memory  of  patriot  and  of  poet  as  to  make  each  contrib- 
ute to  the  other's  fame.  The  spaciousness  of  the  house,  with 
its  large  outlook  across  the  reserved  ground  of  the  Longfellow 
Garden  to  the  broad  marshes  where  flows  the  river  he  celebrated 
in  song,  fitly  accompanies  the  fame  of  a  man  who  was  catholic 
in  his  taste,  and  so  universal  in  his  poetic  sympathy  as  to  miss 
appreciation  chiefly  from  those  who  wish  better  bread  than  can 


70  LITERARY  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

be  made  of  fine  wheat.  During  his  lifetime,  Longfellow  made 
Cambridge  as  Emerson  made  Concord,  the  port  to  which  all 
craft  put  in  that  sailed  over  the  seas  of  literature.  His  name 
is  identified  with  the  place,  and  the  pages  of  his  diary  are  set 
thick  with  the  names  of  men  and  women  who  lifted  the  knocker 
on  his  door.  And  now  that  he  has  gone,  pilgrims  continue 
their  visit  to  the  shrine. 

Scarcely  less  fit  is  the  homestead  of  Lowell,  set  in  an  aviary 
grove,  withdrawn  from  too  close  contact  with  the  world,  yet  with 
paths  which  led  Lowell  into  those  nooks  of  life  from  which  he 
drew  sure  knowledge  of  men  and  nature.  "  Do  you  not  wish 
to  go  to  Egypt  ?  "  a  fellow-townsman  asked  the  poet  exiled 
at  the  court  of  St.  James,  "  and  see  the  work  of  Rameses  ?  " 
He  replied :  "I  would  much  rather  see  Ramsay's  in  Harvard 
Square."  The  attachment  that  Lowell  bore  to  the  town  of  his 
birth  and  best  life  finds  expression  in  his  verse  and  in  that  de- 
lightful paper  on  "Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago."  He  looked 
with  some  misgiving  on  the  changing  aspect  of  the  town  he 
loved,  but  he  added  to  its  true  metropolitanism  by  his  own  close 
association  with  it.  It  is  a  pleasant  witness  to  the  appreciation 
of  poetic  values,  that  the  builder  of  a  new  house  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Elmwood  changed  her  plans  when  she  found  that 
she  was  about  to  cut  down  one  of  the  willows  under  which 
Lowell  had  sung.  The  spreading  chestnut  of  Longfellow's 
song  fared  worse  at  the  hands  of  official  road-straighteners. 

I  have  hinted  at  a  few  of  the  names  among  the  dead  that  give 
distinction  to  Cambridge  as  a  home  of  literature.  It  would  be 
invidious  to  distinguish  among  the  living,  nor  is  it  prudent,  for 
though  some  names  could  be  mentioned  that  may  safely  now 
be  added  to  the  roll  of  honor  in  American  letters,  who  knows 
what  names  there  are  which  need  but  a  little  more  time  to  carry 
them  into  higher  niches  than  now  are  occupied  ?  The  alcove  in 
the  library  which  holds  the  books  of  Cambridge  authors  is  but 
a  beginning  of  our  literary  treasure-house,  for  in  spite  of  the 
heterodoxy  which  I  displayed  when  I  began  to  write,  I  am  a 
firm  believer  in  the  contagion  of  literature,  and  though  Cam- 
bridge becomes  more  urban  with  each  decade,  there  is  that 
about  a  bookish  community  which  stimulates  literary  endeavor. 
Moreover,  the  constant  accession  of  fresh  nature  through  the 
addition  of  young  scholars  to  the  university  serves  to  keep 
alive  that  spirit  of  enthusiasm,  of  devotion  to  high  ideals,  of 


LITERATURE  AND  SCHOLARSHIP.  71 

regard  for  the  kingdom  of  spirit  on  which  literature  thrives. 
The  social  life  of  a  university  town,  besides,  takes  color  from 
the  strong  infusion  of  university  blood.  Literature  and  schol- 
arship have  a  natural  kinship  with  modest  living,  and  as  the 
scholar  will  put  books  before  meat,  so  a  great  university  is  by 
all  its  traditions  a  protest  against  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh. 
A  society  in  which  a  university  is  planted  cannot  so  easily 
make  riches  the  measure  of  social  rank,  and  Cambridge  thus 
will  still  attract  the  lovers  of  a  literary  life,  who  value  in  soci- 
ety the  coin  which  is  struck  from  the  same  mint  as  that  they 
carry  about  with  them  in  their  empty  pockets. 


SCIENTIFIC   CAMBRIDGE. 

By  JOHN   TROWBRIDGE,  S.  D., 

BUMFOBD   PROFESSOR   IN   HARVARD   COLLEGE,    AND   DIRECTOR   OF   THE 
JEFFERSON    PHYSICAL   LABORATORY. 

The  "  London  Nature,"  in  a  review  of  Dr.  George  Birkbeck 
Hill's  interesting  book,  entitled  "  Harvard  College  by  an  Ox- 
onian," noted  the  fact  that  the  author  had  not  expatiated  upon 
the  remarkable  laboratories  and  scientific  collections  at  Cam- 
bridge, which  to  the  mind  of  the  critic  constituted  the  most 
noteworthy  portion  of  the  university. 

When  I,  too,  consider  that  these  laboratories  and  museums 
are  the  growth  of  hardly  more  than  fifty  years,  and  remember 
that  they  already  have  a  world-wide  reputation,  I  feel  that  the 
genial  Dr.  Hill  should  have  devoted  much  space  to  them.  In 
Sanders  Theatre,  over  the  stage,  it  is  told  in  sonorous  Latin 
how  our  ancestors  founded  the  university  :  — 

"  Hie  in  sylvestibus  et  in  incultis  locis  Angli  domo  profugi." 

After  reading  this,  if  one  goes  to  the  Jefferson  Physical 
Laboratory,  and  looks  at  the  small  cabinet  which  contains  all 
the  physical  apparatus  which  the  university  had  in  its  strug- 
gling days,  —  1700  to  1800,  —  a  Benjamin  Franklin  electrical 
machine,  an  orrery,  a  small  telescope,  a  few  models,  and  some 
glass  jars,  and  then  turns  to  the  modern  equipment  of  the 
physical  laboratory,  with  its  dynamos,  its  spectroscojDes,  tele- 
phones, and  acoustical  apparatus,  and  one  studies  the  equip- 
meiit  of  the  observatory,  of  the  chemical,  biological,  and  geolog- 
ical laboratories,  one  feels  that  small  seed  has  truly  borne  great 
fruit  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

The  first  man  of  science  who  lived  in  Cambridge  was  John 
Winthrop,  a  relative  of  Governor  Winthrop,  and  professor  of 
mathematics  and  natural  philosophy  in  Harvard  College  during 
the  years  from  1738  to  1779.  One  can  find  to-day  among  the 
college  archives  his  notebook  of  bis  course  of  lectures.     I  was 


AGASSIZ,  GRAY,   WYMAN.  73 

interested  to  see  what  he  gave  to  students.  There  were  twenty 
or  more  excellent  notes  on  astronomy  and  optics,  and  only  one 
on  magnetism  and  one  on  electricity.  Professor  Winthrop 
assisted  at  certain  astronomical  events  ;  made  interesting  obser- 
vations on  the  earthquake  which  visited  Cambridge  in  1755,  and 
which  was  sufficiently  powerful  to  throw  bricks  from  a  chimney 
of  the  professor's  house  across  the  pathway.  He  was  elected 
member  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London.  Count  Rumford, 
then  Benjamin  Thompson,  it  is  said,  walked  from  Woburn  to 
Cambridge  to  hear  Professor  Winthrop  lecture. 

After  Winthrop  came  Rev.  Mr.  Williams ;  then  Professor 
Farrar,  a  remarkable  lecturer.  Up  to  the  year  1830,  astronomy 
and  physics  were  the  only  sciences  to  which  much  attention 
was  paid  in  Cambridge.  There  were  no  laboratories  even  in 
chemistry. 

In  1816,  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow  was  appointed  Rumford  pro- 
fessor and  lecturer  on  the  application  of  science  to  the  useful 
arts.  He  was  perhaps  the  earliest  citizen  of  Massachusetts  to 
recognize  the  importance  of  scientific  training  for  young  men 
who  proposed  to  enter  into  the  professions  which  require  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  the  sciences.  It  is  to  him,  I  believe,  that 
the  community  owes  the  primal  impulse  which  culminated  in 
the  establishment  of  technical  schools  in  America.  He  was  a 
broad-minded  physician,  and  represented  a  type  of  which  Cam- 
bridge has  had  remarkable  examples.  Daniel  Treadwell  suc- 
ceeded him  in  the  Rumford  professorship.  Professor  Tread- 
well  was  an  eminent  inventor ;  to  him  we  owe  the  method  of 
building  up  steel  guns,  which  revolutionized  the  process  of 
manufacturing  heavy  ordnance,  both  in  this  country  and  Eu- 
rope. To  understand  Professor  Treadwell's  work  one  should 
read  the  admirable  memoir  of  him  written  by  Dr.  Morrill 
Wyman. 

There  had  been  a  long  period  of  intellectual  inactivity  in 
science  from  the  time  of  Professor  John  Winthrop  (1779)  to 
the  advent  of  Dr.  Bigelow  (1816). 

Men  were  now  awakening  to  the  importance  of  a  knowledge 
of  science,  and  Dr.  Bigelow's  plans  for  technological  education 
doubtless  contributed  greatly  to  this  awakening.  In  1842,  Dr. 
Asa  Gray,  the  great  botanist,  came  to  Cambridge,  and  his  com- 
ing marks  an  epoch  in  the  scientific  life  of  our  city.  In  1847, 
Louis  Agassiz,  Asa  Gray,  Jeffries  Wyman,  and  Professor  Hors- 


74  SCIENTIFIC  CAMBRIDGE. 

ford  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  school  of  science,  which  has  had 
more  influence  on  education  in  America  than  any  other  scientific 
institution.  A  large  number  of  young  naturalists  hastened  to 
work  under  the  inspiration  of  Agassiz,  and  Cambridge  immedi- 
ately became  the  centre  on  this  continent  of  zoological  research. 
The  presence  of  this  great  man  in  our  university  illustrates 
forcibly  the  power  of  genius.  By  his  reputation  and  by  his 
personality  he  greatly  increased  the  resources  of  the  university, 
but  above  all  he  excited  a  spirit  of  research,  and  elevated  the 
Puritan  mind  above  the  high-school  ideal  of  a  college.  His 
teachings  still  live  in  the  minds  of  matrons  who  once  attended 
the  Agassiz  school  for  young  ladies  in  Cambridge,  and  has 
prompted  them  in  many  eases  to  stimulate  the  love  for  science 
in  their  children.  I  remember  well  that  sturdy  figure  with 
expansive  brow  and  kindling  eye  which  used  to  be  a  familiar 
sight  in  our  streets.  One  felt  sure  of  awakening  a  soul-satis- 
fying burst  of  enthusiasm  if  he  were  addressed  on  a  scientific 
subject;  and  in  gazing  upon  the  museum  which  he  founded, one 
feels  that  his  spirit  is  with  us,  and  that  he  still  walks  between 
Quincy  Street  and  Divinity  Avenue. 

My  neighbor,  too,  Dr.  Asa  Gray,  the  founder  of  the  herba- 
rium and  botanical  department  of  the  university,  whose  work 
has  done  so  much  to  increase  the  reputation  of  Cambridge  as 
a  scientific  centre  in  Europe,  —  is  not  the  memory  of  his  genial- 
ity and  his  astonishing  vitality  still  fresh  ?  Almost  every  mail 
brought  him  letters  from  the  distinguished  men  of  Europe, 
—  Darwin  and  Hooker,  Romanes  and  De  Candolle.  These 
men  wrote  the  words  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  their  letters 
with  respect  born  of  the  labors  of  a  modest  man  who  sought  no 
civic  office.  Such  men  are  the  choicest  possessions  of  a  munici- 
pality. To  him  I  owe  valuable  scientific  counsel  and  criticism  ; 
and  he,  too,  had  an  ever-bubbling  fountain  of  enthusiasm  and 
human  sympathy.  When  the  city  forester  proj)osed  to  remove 
the  veteran  elm  which  stands  at  my  gate,  an  elm  which  has 
doubtless  been  a  resident  of  Cambridge  since  the  time  of  Cot- 
ton Mather,  Dr.  Gray  rushed  from  his  library  and  saved  it, 
and  then  returned  to  his  important  labors.  The  tree  still  lives, 
and  in  the  spring  evenings,  when  I  walk  up  Garden  Street 
beneath  the  row  of  trees  which  the  city  owes  to  his  care  and 
foresight,  I  remember  the  active  step  which  at  seventy  years 
was  hard  to  overtake,  and  I  feel  a  consciousness  of  that  immor- 


PEIRCE,  EUSTIS,  HORSFORD.  76 

tality  for  which  his  whole  life  pleaded.  He  still  lives  in  his 
works  and  in  his  trees. 

Then,  too,  there  was  a  distinguished  contemporary  of  Agassiz 
and  Gray,  a  man  so  modest  that  Cambridge  did  not  know  it 
possessed  a  great  man  until  he  died,  —  Jeffries  Wyman.  The 
student  of  biology  ever  rises  from  the  perusal  of  his  papers  with 
the  consciousness  that  many  men  of  far  greater  popular  reputa- 
tion were  fit  only  to  sit  at  his  footstool.  He,  too,  had  that  fine 
enthusiasm  which  warmed  the  heart  of  the  struggling  scientific 
student  of  1847,  —  struggling  in  the  sense  of  the  lack  of  labo- 
ratories and  systematic  instruction,  but  rich  in  the  ability  to 
converse  with  such  men  as  Wyman.  I  can  see  now  that  fine 
profile  fit  for  a  medallion,  with  a  face  lit  by  the  gentle  glow  of 
scientific  reflection.  When  the  citizen  of  Cambridge  grows 
restive  under  taxation  and  thinks  that  the  broad  lands  of  the 
university  should  share  his  burden,  let  him  reflect  upon  the 
possibility  of  having  such  choice  spirits  as  Jeffries  Wyman 
among  his  townsmen,  and  let  him  look  at  the  scientific  arrange- 
ments of  the  Cambridge  Hospital,  due  in  such  large  measure 
to  a  kindred  scientific  spirit.  The  university  is  the  proper 
environment  of  such  men. 

In  1850,  the  Scientific  School  was  established,  and  under  the 
instruction  of  Agassiz,  Gray,  Wyman,  Peirce,  Eustis,  Horsford, 
a  number  of  teachers  were  bred  who,  I  have  said,  have  extended 
the  spirit  of  research  over  the  entire  continent.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  Scientific  School,  a  number  of  remarkable  men  were 
here  as  students  or  as  assistants.  I  need  only  mention  among 
them  the  names  of  Simon  Newcomb,  Asaph  Hall,  Dr.  B.  A. 
Gould,  S.  H.  Scudder,  Morse,  Hyatt,  and  Putnam. 

At  the  time  I  now  speak  of  there  were  no  well-equipped  labo- 
ratories in  Cambridge.  The  observatory  was  the  only  endowed 
scientific  institution,  and  there  the  two  Bonds  —  father  and  son 
—  initiated  the  astronomical  publications  which  have  continued 
in  such  full  measure.  In  the  work  of  the  Bonds  we  perceive 
the  beginning  of  that  careful  physical  study  of  the  planets 
which  has  now  become  such  an  important  part  of  astronomical 
research.  In  those  early  days,  Cambridge,  too,  contributed  a 
keen  observer  in  Mr.  Tuttle,  whose  wagon  is  "  tied  to  a  star." 
After  the  Bonds  came  Professor  Winlock,  who  greatly  added 
to  the  mechanical  equipment  of  the  observatory.  Few  citizens 
of  Cambridge  who  met  this   silent   man   occasionally  on  the 


76  SCIENTIFIC  CAMBRIDGE. 

streets  knew  his  reserve  power,  or  the  great  geniality  which 
lurked  beneath  a  taciturn  exterior.  I  remember  once  borrow- 
ing two  valuable  prisms  from  him,  when  I  was  a  green  young 
instructor,  which  I  succeeded  in  chipping.  On  returning  them 
to  him  with  great  perturbation  of  spirit,  he  instantly  said : 
"  Oh,  I  always  intended  to  get  Alvau  Clark  to  reduce  the  size 
of  these  prisms,  and  he  would  have  had  to  chip  off  these  edges." 
I  loved  the  man  instantly.  The  observatory  has  prospered  ex- 
ceedingly, and  it  is  now,  under  Professor  Pickering,  the  princi- 
pal astrophysical  observatory  in  America.  The  scientific  life 
in  Cambridge  began  with  astronomy  and  mathematics,  and 
Cambridge  has  sent  out  the  leading  astronomers  in  America. 
There  was  little  systematic  instruction  in  the  higher  branches 
of  astronomy  and  mathematics  in  1850,  but  there  was  a  strong 
intellectual  environment ;  and  one  sometimes  gets  as  much  in 
a  colloquium,  even  in  Berlin,  as  in  a  course  of  systematic  lec- 
tures. One  should  be  led,  however,  by  great  minds.  I  remem- 
ber Professor  Benjamin  Peirce  once  remarking  with  a  gleam  of 
his  wonderful  eyes :  "  It  takes  an  eagle  to  train  eaglets." 

The  subject  of  astronomy  has  always  had  in  Cambridge  the 
peculiar  advantages  of  the  services  of  Alvan  Clark  and  his  sons. 
They  can  be  called  artist  mechanicians.  They  have  built  the 
largest  and  best  telescopes  in  the  world,  and  even  Russia  has 
been  a  suitor  at  the  door  of  their  workshop.  Their  labors  in 
connection  with  astronomical  research  illustrate  the  general 
truth  that  the  progress  of  the  physical  sciences  depends  as  much 
upon  mechanical  skill  as  upon  mathematical  knowledge. 

The  subject  of  natural  philosophy,  or  as  it  is  now  called 
physics,  has  always  been  closely  allied  to  astronomy,  and  for 
fifty  years  Professor  Lovering  gave  lectures  on  both  of  these 
sciences.  He  was  a  striking  figure  in  the  university,  and  a 
marked  example  of  the  school  of  college  professors  which  once 
flourished  in  all  American  colleges,  —  professors  whose  elabo- 
rate lectures  were  characterized  by  literary  skill  and  dominated 
by  philosophy.  This  school  is  now  fast  passing  away  and  giving 
place  to  one  composed  of  men  who  are  devoted  to  laboratory 
teaching.  The  professors  of  chemistry  also,  before  1840,  taught 
mainly  by  lectures  and  text-books,  and  the  university  owes 
much  to  the  labors  of  Professor  Josiah  Parsons  Cooke,  who 
developed  the  laboratory  teaching  of  chemistry  in  Harvard  Col- 
lege.    The  Scientific  School,  too,  has  done  much  for  chemical 


LIKE   THE  STARS  FOREVER.  77 

science.  It  was  there  that  Dr.  Wolcott  Gibbs  trained  a  remark- 
able band  of  investigators  who  are  now  teaching  their  science 
in  many  universities. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  rapid  and  incomplete  enumeration 
of  the  scientific  men  who  have  given  our  city  a  reputation  far 
beyond  local  limits,  that  the  remarkable  fountain  of  inspiration 
which  shot  up  like  a  great  geyser  in  the  fifties  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  a  stream  of  patient  investigation  in  well-equipped  labo- 
ratories. Where  there  was  one  investigator  in  1850,  there  are 
now  hundreds ;  and  can  we  not  say  that  just  as  a  deluge  can 
lift  a  host  of  small  craft  up  to  the  heights  of  the  peaks  once 
attained  by  only  one  or  two  explorers,  it  is  now  more  difficult 
for  a  scientific  man  to  rise  far  above  his  contemporaries.  It  is 
certain  that  with  its  remarkable  facilities  for  systematic  work  in 
laboratories  and  museiuns,  Cambridge  is  ready  for  the  scientific 
genius  when  he  is  ready  to  manifest  himself.  We  are  living  to 
a  certain  extent,  however,  upon  the  capital  of  the  past ;  and 
the  young  devotee  of  science,  in  remembering  the  great  men  in 
science  who  have  lived  and  worked  in  Cambridge,  cannot  fail  to 
feel  a  throb  of  inspiration  in  his  heart  as  he  reads  in  the  digni- 
fied Latin  over  the  stage  of  Sanders  Theatre  :  — 

"  Qui  autem  docti  f uerint,  fulgebunt  quasi  splendor  firmamenti  .  .  . 

Et  qui  ad  Justitiam  erudiunt  multos,  quasi  stellse  in  perpetuas  eetemitates.** 

Editor's  Note. -r— The  Editor  cannot  permit  the  above  chapter  to  con- 
clude without  a  word  in  regard  to  its  author.  Professor  Trowbridge  is  a 
prominent  figure  among  the  leaders  of  physical  research  in  this  country. 
He  has  been  active  in  many  lines  of  original  investigation  during  the  past 
twenty  years,  and  to  him  is  due  the  principal  credit  of  developing  the  phy- 
sical department  of  Harvard  University  from  a  mere  cabinet  of  apparatus 
and  a  lectureship  to  a  working  laboratory  that  may  well  invite  comparison 
with  the  leading  laboratories  of  the  world  as  to  the  opportunities  offered  for 
advanced  research,  particularly  in  the  field  to  which  Professor  Trowbridge 
has  of  late  given  special  attention,  —  electrical  waves  and  the  electro-mag- 
netic theory  of  light. 


THE  CHARACTERISTICS   OF  MUNICIPAL 
GOVERNMENT  IN   CAMBRIDGE. 

By  HON.  WILLIAM  A.  BANCROFT, 

MAYOR   OF   CAMBRIDGE. 

The  government  of  a  city  depends  upon  the  disposition  of  a 
majority  of  its  citizens  holding  the  same  views  and  acting  to- 
gether. The  object  of  good  city  government  is  the  efficient  and 
economical  administration  of  a  city's  affairs.  This  object  is 
often  thwarted  by  political  or  private  interests  inconsistent  with 
it.  Partisanship  may  be  eliminated  from  the  conduct  of  city 
affairs,  and  so  may  the  influence  of  private  interests.  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  both  are  rarely  eliminated  altogether,  but  it 
is  true  also  that  so  far  as  they  are  eliminated  there  is  a  cor- 
responding rise  in  the  standard  of  efficiency  and  economy. 

The  distinctive  feature  of  municipal  government  in  Cambridge 
is  its  non-partisanship,  —  not  bi-partisanship,  such  as  is  exem- 
plified by  a  board  made  up,  in  accordance  with  a  requirement 
of  law  or  by  agreement,  of  an  equal  number  of  Democrats  and 
of  Republicans,  but,  literally  and  actually,  non-partisanship  in 
which  membership  in  a  national  political  party  has  to  do  with 
the  selection  of  officials  only  as  membership  in  a  church,  or  in  a 
society,  or  social  standing,  or  wealth,  or  vocation,  or  peculiar 
views,  have  to  do  with  this.  Undoubtedly  one  or  more  of  these 
considerations  make  for  or  against  the  election  of  a  certain  can- 
didate in  the  minds  of  some  voters,  as  his  political  faith  does  in 
the  minds  of  others.  So  they  do  in  the  choice  of  a  lawyer  or 
doctor  or  business  agent,  but  they  are  not  ordinarily  taken  into 
account  by  most  people  when  selecting  a  lawyer  or  doctor  or 
business  agent,  and  the  national  party  to  which  a  candidate 
belongs  is  not  taken  into  account  by  the  representative  Cam- 
bridge voter.  Fitness  for  the  particular  office,  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  candidate's  honesty,  ability,  and  experience  so  far 
as  the  voter  has  information  about  these  qualities,  is  the  govern- 


City  Hall. 


NON-PARTISANSHIP.  79 

ing  consideration.  Twice  only  within  the  last  twenty  years 
have  partisan  nominations  been  made  at  a  city  election.  Each 
time  scarce  a  candidate  thus  nominated  was  elected,  and  the 
disapproval  of  the  partisan  proceeding  shown  by  the  voters, 
including  a  large  number  of  the  members  of  the  party  whose 
committee  caused  the  nominations  to  be  made,  could  hardly 
have  been  more  emphatic. 

In  the  administration  of  Cambridge  affairs  partisan  considera- 
tions have  even  less  a  place.  Indeed,  so  far  as  can  be  deter- 
mined by  the  proceedings  of  the  city  council  and  by  the  doings 
of  city  officials,  they  have  no  place  whatever.  On  the  floor  of 
the  city  council,  or  in  committee  rooms,  one  hears  no  allusion  to , 
political  parties,  and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  they  are 
ever  thought  of  in  connection  with  city  matters.  Heads  of 
departments,  members  of  boards,  and  subordinate  officials  are 
selected  without  regard  to  their  political  faith,  and  for  years, 
certainly,  it  has  never  been  charged  that  the  city's  service  is 
used  for  partisan  purposes. 

Municipal  parties  exist,  however,  apparently  more  to  favor 
the  candidacy  of  certain  individuals,  than  to  support  a  given 
municipal  policy.  Nominally  all  agree,  or  have  agreed  for 
many  years,  to  what  is  called  a  pay-as-you-go  policy  ;  that  is,  as 
it  is  generally  stated,  the  payment  of  current  expenses  with  cur- 
rent revenue,  debt  to  be  incurred  only  for  large  and  extraordi- 
nary undertakings  in  which  the  future  also  is  to  share.  Actu- 
ally, however,  there  is  a  disagreement  in  the  construction  of 
what  are  current  expenses,  and  there  is  also  a  difference  in  the 
selection  of  officials,  and  in  the  methods  of  transacting  busi- 
ness, as  well  as  in  the  administration  of  many  of  the  concerns  of 
the  city.  While  these  disagreements  and  differences  are  not 
always  expressly  defined,  they  are  nevertheless  clearly  discern- 
ible by  those  familiar  with  city  business,  and  they  furnish  a 
plenty  of  reasons  for  the  eternal  vigilance  which  is  the  price  of 
good  city  government  even  where  the  division  along  national 
party  lines  is  disregarded  in  municipal  affairs. 

Accustomed  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  municipality  and 
not  that  of  a  political  party,  the  members  of  the  Cambridge 
city  government  are  less  susceptible  to  private  interests  than 
they  would  be,  were  not  the  interests  of  the  city  paramount  to 
all  others  in  their  minds.  Cambridge  therefore  has  been  free 
from  "  jobs."     The  corruptionist  has  had  little  encouragement. 


80  THE  MUNICIPAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Another  feature  of  municipal  government  in  Cambridge  — 
a  direct  result  of  non-partisanship  —  is  the  retention  of  city 
officials  in  office.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  an  instance  where 
an  official  had  been  removed,  except  for  cause,  and  happily 
there  have  been  few  such  cases.  It  is  customary  also  to  pro- 
mote subordinates  when  a  vacancy  occurs,  and  as  a  result,  there 
are  many  officials  who  have  spent  the  best  part  of  their  lives 
in  the  city's  service. 

The  machinery  of  the  city  government  of  Cambridge  is  vested 
in  a  mayor,  a  city  council  of  two  branches,  a  school  committee,  and 
a  board  of  assessors.  The  mayor,  aldermen,  school  committee, 
and  board  of  assessors  are  elected  by  a  plurality  vote  of  all  the 
voters  of  the  city,  but  each  ward  is  entitled  to  three  members 
of  the  school  committee.  The  common  councilmen  are  elected 
by  wards.  All  other  boards  and  all  heads  of  departments  are 
either  appointed  by  the  mayor  subject  to  the  confirmation  of  the 
board  of  aldermen  (and  this  method  applies  to  most),  or  they 
are  chosen  by  a  vote  of  the  city  council.  Boards  and  heads  of 
departments  appoint  all  their  subordinates,  except  in  the  police 
and  fire  departments,  and  except  also  in  the  cases  of  the  assist- 
ant assessors  and  the  assistant  city  clerk.  In  the  police  and  fire 
departments,  the  subordinates  are  appointed  by  the  mayor  sub- 
ject to  the  confirmation  of  the  board  of  aldermen,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  assistant  assessors.  The  assistant  city  clerk  is 
elected  by  the  city  council.  After  due  hearing,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  a  majority  of  the  board  of  aldermen,  the  mayor  may 
remove  any  member  of  the  board  of  overseers  of  the  poor  or  of 
the  board  of  health,  and  any  other  officer  or  member  of  a  board 
appointed  by  him.  The  mayor  is  not  a  member  of  either 
branch  of  the  city  council.  The  executive  powers  of  the  city 
are  vested  in  him,  and  he  is  also  surveyor  of  highways.  All 
executive  boards  and  officers  are  at  all  times  accountable  to  him 
for  the  proper  discharge  of  their  duties.  The  mayor  has  a  quali- 
fied veto  power  over  the  doings  of  the  city  council,  and  of  the 
board  of  aldermen  ;  all  contracts  over  $300  require  his  approval 
before  going  into  effect,  and  he  submits  annually  to  the  city 
council  the  estimates  of  money  required  for  the  respective 
departments  with  his  recommendations  on  them.  No  expendi- 
ture can  be  made  and  no  liability  incurred  for  any  purpose 
beyond  the  appropriation  previously  made.  To  the  city  council 
or  to  the  board  of  aldermen  are  given  all  the  powers  of  the 


EXECUTIVE  POWER.  81 

city  not  given  to  the  mayor,  the  school  committee,  and  other 
public  officers  prescribed  by  general  law.  The  city  council 
makes  ordinances  and  provides  for  the  appointment  of  cei-tain 
officers,  de&ies  their  powers  and  duties,  and  fixes  their  com- 
pensation. It  also  has  authority  to  lay  out,  alter,  and  dis- 
continue ways,  to  take  land  for  them,  and  for  the  construction 
of  sewers.  The  board  of  aldermen  may  authorize  the  construc- 
tion of  sidewalks,  and  must  assess  the  expense  of  the  materi- 
als upon  the  abutting  lands,  which  then  become  chargeable  for 
the  payment  of  the  amount.  The  board  of  aldermen  fixes  the 
number  and  compensation  of  policemen,  and  establishes  general 
regulations  for  their  government.  It  also  has  the  power  to 
grant  and  revoke  licenses  for  which  provision  is  made  by  law 
or  ordinance. 

The  school  committee,  of  which  the  mayor  is  ex  officio  chair- 
man without  a  vote,  performs  all  such  duties  as  the  school 
committees  in  Massachusetts  towns  are  required  by  law  to 
perform. 

The  essential  difference  between  the  form  of  city  government 
of  to-day  and  that  in  vogue  from  the  time  Cambridge  became  a 
city,  up  to  1892,  is  in  the  assignment  of  executive  power.  For- 
merly, it  was  given  to  the  mayor  and  board  of  aldermen  or  to 
the  city  council,  and  was  exercised  through  their  committees. 
Now,  it  is  given  to  the  mayor,  and  is  exercised  through  the 
boards  and  heads  of  departments,  under  his  general  super- 
vision and  control. 


THE   RINDGE   GIFTS. 

By  EX-GOVERNOR  WILLIAM  E.  RUSSELL. 

Until  1887,  Cambridge,  while  distinguished  in  many  ways, 
had  not  been  specially  favored  by  any  large  gifts  from  her  cit- 
izens for  public  purposes.  She  had  been  conspicuous  for  her 
educational  institutions,  for  her  many  and  varied  indastries,  for 
her  sturdy  citizenship,  and  especially  for  the  part  she  had  taken 
in  the  struggle  for  the  independence  of  our  country,  and  later 
for  union  and  liberty.  Intelligence,  patriotism,  and  many 
other  virtues  were  characteristic  of  her  people,  but  their  wealth 
was  not  great,  and  it  had  not  been  devoted  to  a  large  extent  to 
distinctly  public  objects. 

The  year  1887  marked  a  new  epoch  in  her  history.  Then 
began  a  period  of  larger  things,  of  grander  municipal  life,  of 
greater  public  spirit  in  works  of  philanthropy  and  benevolence, 
and  of  devotion  to  the  charities  that  "  soothe  and  heal  and  bless." 
The  privilege  of  starting  this  movement  was  given  to  one  of  her 
younger  sons  of  ample  fortune  and  of  generous  impulses.  His 
early  life  and  associations  were  with  Cambridge.  His  later 
years,  spent  elsewhere,  had  with  deep  religious  spirit  been  de- 
voted to  good  works,  which  broadened  his  life  out  into  the 
lives  of  others.  With  noble  generosity  and  fine  public  spirit, 
he  gave  largely  to  the  communities  where  he  dwelt,  and  also 
richly  blessed  this  city  of  his  birth. 

For  many  years  Cambridge  ^had  felt  the  need  of  a  public 
library  that  would  meet  the  requirements  of  the  people  of  a 
large  and  growing  city.  At  a  meeting  of  prominent  citizens,  a 
committee  of  ten  was  appointed  to  bring  the  matter  to  the 
attention  of  the  people  of  Cambridge,  and  to  solicit  their  sub- 
scriptions. As  mayor  and  one  of  this  committee,  it  was  my 
pleasure  to  make  known  our  wants  to  one  who,  although  he 
had  not  been  a  citizen  of  the  city  during  all  his  life,  had  always 
manifested  a  deep  interest  in  her  welfare.    His  answer,  showing 


Fredekick  H.  Rindge. 


HEARTFELT  THANKS.  83 

his  generosity  and  love  for  his  native  city,  is  given  in  the  fol- 
lowing letter :  — 

BoBrroN,  June  14,  1887. 
Hon.  William  E.  Russell. 

Dear  Sib,  —  It  would  make  me  happy  to  give  to  the  city  of  Cam- 
bridge the  tract  of  land  bounded  by  Cambridge,  Trowbridge,  Broad- 
way and  Irving  streets,  in  the  city  of  Cambridge,  and  to  build  thereon 
and  give  to  said  city  a  Public  Library  building,  under  the  following 
conditions :  — 

That  on  or  within  said  building  tablets  be  placed  bearing  the  fol- 
lowing words :  — 

First :  "  Built  in  gratitude  to  God,  to  his  son,  Jesus  Christ,  and  to 
the  Holy  Spirit." 

Second :  The  Ten  Commandments,  and  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself." 

Third :  "  Men,  women,  children,  obey  these  laws.  If  you  do,  you 
will  be  happy ;  if  you  disobey  them,  sorrow  will  come  upon  you." 

Fourth :  "It  is  noble  to  be  pure ;  it  is  right  to  be  honest ;  it  is 
necessary  to  be  temperate ;  it  is  wise  to  be  industrious ;  but  to  know 
God  is  best  of  all." 

Fifth :  Words  for  this  tablet  to  be  given  hereafter. 

It  is  my  wish  that  a  portion  of  said  tract  of  land  be  reserved  as  a 
playground  for  children  and  the  young.  I  ask  you  to  present  this 
communication  to  the  city  government  of  Cambridge,  and  notify  me 
of  its  action  in  relation  to  it.  Should  the  gift  be  accepted,  I  hope  to 
proceed  at  once  with  the  work. 

Yours  respectfully, 

(Signed)        Frederick  H.  Rindge. 

The  tract  of  land  contained  nearly^  115,000  square  feet,  and 
was  admirably  situated  for  the  purpose. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  city  council  held  June  15, 1887,  the  fol- 
lowing resolutions  were  adopted :  — 

"  Resolved^  That  the  city  of  Cambridge  accepts  with  profound 
gratitude  the  munificent  gift  of  Frederick  H.  Rindge  of  land 
and  building  for  a  public  library,  as  stated  in  his  letter  of 
June  14,  1887 ;  that  the  city  accepts  it  upon  the  conditions 
stated  in  said  letter,  which  it  will  faithfully  and  gladly  observe 
as  a  sacred  trust,  in  accordance  with  his  desire. 

"  Resolved.,  That  in  gratefully  accepting  this  gift,  the  city 
tenders  to  Frederick  H.  Rindge  its  heartfelt  thanks,  and  de- 
sires to  express  its  sense  of  deep  obligation  to  him,  recognizing 
the   Christian   faith,  generosity,  and  public  spirit   that   have 


84  THE  RINDGE  GIFTS. 

prompted  him  to  supply  a  long-felt  want  by  this  gift  of  great 
and  permanent  usefulness." 

Messrs.  Van  Brunt  &  Howe  were  selected  as  architects. 
Ground  was  broken  for  the  library  on  May  1,  1888,  and  on 
June  29,  1889,  the  keys  of  the  building  were  transferred  to  the 
city  government.  The  exercises  of  the  dedication  were  held  in 
the  main  hall-way  of  the  building,  and  consisted  of  music ; 
prayer  by  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie,  D.  D. ;  presentation  of 
deed  of  gift,  by  Francis  J.  Parker;  acceptance  of  the  same 
by  the  mayor,  Hon.  Henry  H.  Gilmore ;  remarks  by  Hon.  S. 
L.  Montague,  president  of  the  board  of  trustees,  Charles  W. 
Eliot,  president  of  Harvard  University,  Samuel  S.  Green,  libra- 
rian of  the  Worcester  Public  Library,  and  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson. 

The  building  is  of  the  Romanesque  style  of  southern  France, 
with  exterior  of  Dedham  stone,  and  dark  sandstone  trimmings. 
It  has  two  divisions,  one,  partially  fireproof,  devoted  to  the  con- 
venience of  the  public,  with  waiting-hall,  reading-room,  refer- 
ence library,  and  memorial  and  administrative  rooms  ;  the  other 
division  is  for  the  storage  of  the  books,  and  is  wholly  fireproof. 
The  cost  of  the  building  was  about  1100,000. 

A  few  months  after  his  gift  of  the  library  building,  and  be- 
fore work  upon  it  had  begun,  Mr.  Rindge  made  other  gifts  to 
the  city  of  even  larger  value  and  of  more  importance.  They 
were  made  by  the  following  letter :  — 

Los  Angeles,  November  3, 1887. 
Hon.  William  E.  Russell. 

Dear  Sir,  —  It  would  make  me  happy  to  give  to  the  city  of  Cam- 
bridge, provided  no  considerable  misfortune  happens  to  my  property 
within  two  years  from  date,  three  gifts,  which  are  described  herein  :  — 

First,  a  worthy  site  for  a  High  School  Building  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  the  Public  Library  Common,  provided  the  following  inscrip- 
tion, in  metal  or  stone  letters,  be  placed  over  the  main  entrance  door : 
"  Knowledge  is  worth  seeking  ;  but  the  wise,  while  striving  to  cultivate 
their  minds,  strive  also  to  acquire  strength  of  soul  and  body;  then 
knowledge  avails."  And  provided,  also,  one  other  condition  be  com- 
plied with.  [This  condition  is  that  an  adjoining  lot  be  purchased  and 
added  to  the  High  School  lot.] 

Second:  A  City  Hall,  provided  the  following  inscription,  in  metal 
or  stone  letters,  be  placed  on  the  outside  of  said  building  and  over  its 
main  entrance  door :  "  God  has  given  commandments  unto  men. 
From  these   commandments  men  have  framed   laws  by  which  to  be 


A   MODEST  LETTER.  85 

governed.  It  is  honorable  and  praiseworthy  faithfully  to  serve  the 
people  by  helping  to  administer  these  laws.  If  the  laws  are  not  en- 
forced, the  people  are  not  well  governed."  And  provided  also  the 
city  of  Cambridge  give  a  worthy  site  for  said  City  Hall. 

Third  :  An  Industrial  School  Building  ready  for  use,  together  with 
a  site  for  the  same  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Public 
Library  Common,  provided  the  following  inscription,  in  metal  or  stone 
letters,  be  placed  on  the  outside  of  said  building  and  over  its  main 
entrance  door :  "  Work  is  one  of  our  greatest  blessings ;  every  one 
should  have  an  honest  occupation."  I  wish  the  plain  arts  of  industry 
to  be  taught  in  this  school.  I  wish  the  school  to  be  especially  for  boys 
of  average  talents,  who  may  in  it  learn  how  their  arms  and  hands  can 
earn  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  for  themselves ;  how,  after  a  while, 
they  can  support  a  family  and  home ;  and  how  the  price  of  these 
blessings  is  faithful  industry,  no  bad  habits,  and  wise  economy,  — 
which  price,  by  the  way,  is  not  dear.  I  wish  also  that  in  it  they  may 
become  accustomed  to  being  under  authority,  and  be  now  and  then 
instructed  in  the  laws  that  govern-  health  and  nobility  of  character.  I 
urge  that  admittance  to  said  school  be  given  only  to  strong  boys,  who 
will  grow  up  to  be  able  workingmen.  Strict  obedience  to  such  a  rule 
would  tend  to  make  parents  careful  in  the  training  of  their  young, 
as  they  would  know  that  their  boys  would  be  deprived  of  the  benefits 
of  said  school  unless  they  were  able-bodied.  I  think  the  Industrial 
School  would  thus  graduate  many  young  men  who  would  prove  them- 
selves useful  citizens.  I  ask  you  to  present  this  communication  to  the 
city  government  of  Cambridge,  and  notify  me  of  its  action  in  rela- 
tion to  it.  Should  the  gifts  with  their  conditions  be  accepted,  I  hope 
to  proceed  at  once  with  the  work. 

Respectfully  yours, 

Fredebick  H.  Rindge. 

At  a  special  meeting  of  the  city  council,  held  November  12, 
1887,  the  following  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted:  — 

"  Resolved.,  that  the  city  of  Cambridge  accepts  with  deep  grati- 
tude the  munificent  gifts  of  Frederick  H.  Rindge,  as  expressed 
in  his  letter  of  November  3,  1887,  to  the  mayor.  In  accept- 
ing said  gifts  it  desires  to  signify  to  him  its  profound  and  last- 
ing appreciation  of  his  great  generosity  and  public  spirit." 

MANUAL   TRAINING   SCHOOL. 

Messrs.  Rotch  &  Tilden  were  selected  as  architects.  Ground 
was  broken  July  12,  1888,  and  the  building  was  ready  for  use 
on  the  1st  of  October  following.     The  late  Harry  EUis  had  the 


86  THE  RINDGE  GIFTS. 

main  charge  of  the  erection  and  equipment  of  the  school,  and 
later  was  chosen  its  superintendent.  To  his  constant,  faithful, 
able  service  and  unselfish  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  school 
and  its  pupils  was  due  its  great  success. 

The  building  is  of  Romanesque  style  of  architecture,  and 
stands  upon  a  generous  lot  of  land  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Irving  Street.  It  consists  of  a  main  building  70  by  62  feet, 
with  wings  60  feet  square.  A  description  of  the  work  of  the 
students  will  be  given  elsewhere  in  this  volume  by  Mr.  Morse, 
its  superintendent. 

The  building  and  equipment  cost  about  $100,000.  The 
school,  since  its  foundation,  has  been  supisorted  wholly  by  Mr. 
Rindge. 

THE   CITY    HALL. 

The  architects  of  the  city  hall  were  Messrs.  Longfellow, 
Alden  &  Harlow.  A  suitable  site  was  purchased  by  the  city 
government,  located  on  Main  Street,  and  extending  from  Bige- 
low  to  Inman  streets.  Ground  was  broken  February  1,  1889, 
and  the  corner-stone  was  laid,  with  appropriate  ceremonies,  on 
May  15,  1889,  by  Most  Worshipful  Henry  Endicott,  Grand 
Master  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Masons  of  Massachusetts. 

On  December  9,  1890,  the  new  city  hall,  finished  and  fur- 
nished, was  formally  transferred  to  the  city,  with  exercises 
simple  in  character,  in  accordance  with  the  wish  of  Mr.  Eindge. 

The  building  is  of  quarry-faced  stone,  and  stands  well  back 
from  the  street,  with  terraces  in  front.  It  is  157  feet  long,  92 
feet  deep  on  the  sides,  but  has  a  recessed  court  32  by  37  feet  at 
the  back.  The  front  wall  is  broken  by  a  beautiful  tower  27 
feet  square,  which  rises  154  feet  from  its  base.  The  building 
is  remarkable  for  its  fine  proportions  and  massive  dignity. 
Its  cost  was  about  $225,000.  In  front  and  over  the  handsome 
entrance  is  placed  the  inscription  suggested  by  Mr.  Rindge. 

With  characteristic  modesty,  the  city's  benefactor  insisted, 
as  a  condition  of  his  generous  gifts,  that  no  memorial  to  him 
should  be  placed  in  any  of  these  buildings,  nor  should  his  name 
be  connected  with  them.  "  What  I  am  aiming  to  do,"  he  said, 
"  is  to  establish  certain  didactic  public  buildings."  So  upon 
each  he  wrote  the  lesson  it  was  to  teach.  But  his  gifts  will  for- 
ever teach  another  lesson  which  his  modesty  would  not  mention, 
—  the  lesson  of  a  noble  life  and  fortune  devoted  to  God  and  to 
his  fellow-men. 


"THE   CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 

By  rev.  DAVID  NELSON  BEACH. 

Some  four  or  five  years  ago,  a  phrase  broke  in  upon  our 
Cambridge  speech  with  such  suddenness,  energy,  and  large  sig- 
nificance as  are  hard  even  yet  to  realize.  Who  first  used  it  I 
do  not  know.  My  impression  is  that  our  present  Superintend- 
ent of  Parks,  then  a  leading  writer  on  our  Cambridge  newspa- 
pers, was  one  of  the  earliest  to  apprehend  its  potency,  and  that 
he  Avith  his  skillful  pen  somewhat  furthered  its  becoming  widely 
used.  But  whoever  it  may  have  been  that  first  uttered  it,  and 
however  serviceable  the  writer  alluded  to,  or  any  other  persons, 
may  have  been  in  bringing  it  into  current  use,  certain  it  is  that 
it  survived  and  became  a  power  of  its  own  accord,  and  in  a  way 
that  no  single  individual  or  group  of  individuals  could  either 
have  initiated  or  prevented.  It  was  like  a  new  star  coming 
into  the  heavens.  It  was  like  a  newly  discovered  force  offering 
itself  to  the  uses  of  man. 

That  phrase  stands  at  the  head  of  this  article  ;  and  the  priv- 
ilege has  been  accorded  me  of  giving  some  account  of  the  cir- 
cumstances which  rendered  possible  this  phenomenon  of  human 
speech,  and  which  led  up  to  its  making  itself  a  felt  power 
among  us.  I  am  desired,  also,  if  I  shall  be  able,  to  suggest 
its  sweep,  its  puissance,  and  its  vast  promise  among  us  for  the 
time  to  come. 

First,  however,  a  word  more  about  the  phrase  itself.  Every- 
body began  using  it.  It  expressed  something  to  their  minds 
which  had  before  been  inexpressible.  This  was  the  secret  of 
its  popularity  and  of  its  ever-growing  force.  Moreover,  its  use 
was  not  confined  to  any  single  class  or  type  of  persons.  The 
most  cultivated  men  and  women  in  our  city,  plain  day-labor- 
ers, individuals  of  very  large  insight  and  vision,  persons  of 
the  most  circumscribed  intellectual  endowment,  children,  old 
people,  those  of  all  varieties  of  opinion  and  shades  of  ideas,  — 


88  "THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 

alike  introduced  this  phrase  into  their  vocabulary.  It  struck  a 
universal  chord  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men. 

Another  peculiarity  of  the  phrase  was  its  indefinableness. 
After  it  had  come  into  use,  and  had  been  conjured  by  for  sev- 
eral years,  there  apjjeared  not  long  ago  in  one  of  our  newspa- 
pers a  "  symposium,"  contributed  to  by  many  of  our  foremost 
citizens.  The  purpose  of  this  broadside  was,  if  possible,  to 
define  "  The  Cambridge  Idea."  I  do  not  know  where,  in  so 
small  space,  so  much  good  civics  can  be  found  as  in  that  broad- 
side, which  ought  to  be  printed  and  spread  widely  over  the 
country.  The  curious  thing  about  the  many  articles  contrib- 
uted was  that  they  greatly  differed.  They  embraced  the  largest 
variety  of  sentiments.  Each  writer  was  sure  that  what  he 
mentioned  was  precisely  what  the  phrase  meant.  The  chair- 
man of  the  Harvard  Board  of  Preachers,  in  addressing  a  large 
audience  in  a  campaign  of  ours  two  or  three  years  ago,  essayed 
to  define  it  as  "The  Christian  Idea."  Another  speaker,  also 
before  a  large  audience  in  a  later  campaign,  made  bold  to  affirm 
that  "  The  Cambridge  Idea  "  was  not  an  idea  at  all,  but  an  ideal, 
Cambridge's  ideality.  It  is  not  improbable  that  this  speaker, 
like  the  preceding,  was  right ;  but  it  is  beyond  question  that, 
had  the  phrase  started  under  the  name  of  "  Ideal "  or  "  Ideal- 
ity," it  would  not  have  survived  a  day. 

That  must  be  a  very  large  symbol  of  thought  which  could 
become,  so  soon,  so  abidingly,  amongst  such  diverse  persons, 
within  such  a  large  population,  and  with  such  spontaneity,  such 
a  standard  or  measure  of  civic  and  ethical  values,  as  this  phe- 
nomenal state  of  things  indicates.  Furthermore,  there  is  some- 
thing nobly  inspiring  about  it,  and  that  quite  independently 
of  .neighborhood.  I  have  seen,  for  example,  many  audiences 
beyond  Cambridge,  and  even  beyond  Massachusetts,  gathered 
to  listen  to  some  account  of  what  has  been  happening  among 
us,  who  —  when  this  point  of  the  description  was  reached,  and 
the  striking  circumstance  was  held  forth  of  a  great  and  hetero- 
geneous city  bowing  to  the  sway  of  such  a  phrase  as  this,  and 
of  its  profound  and  transcendental  meaning  —  would  give  way 
to  the  most  enthusiastic  applause,  so  that  they  needed,  in  some 
instances,  to  be  restrained,  if  the  speech  were  to  go  on  ;  and  I 
have  known  them  to  express  the  heartfelt  desire  that  such  a 
phrase  might  break  forth  likewise  amongst  them,  and  become 
equally  regnant. 


THE  HERITAGE  OF  CAMBRIDGE.  89 

The  task  assigned  me  is  exceedingly  difficult.  It  would  be 
easier  to  write  a  book  on  the  subject  than  a  brief  article.  I 
greatly  fear,  moreover,  that  I  shall  be  unable  to  do  the  subject 
any  justice.  For  I  am  to  write  of  a  subtle  and  spirit-like  thing, 
having  to  do  with  that  place  where  thoughts  are  born,  and 
where  aspirations  acquire  for  themselves  wings.  The  reader 
will  readily  see  that  nothing  could  be  easier  than  almost  or  alto- 
gether to  miss  the  point.  However,  I  must  try ;  and,  as  con- 
densedly  and  suggestively  as  I  may  be  able,  I  shall  throw  out 
some  imperfect  sketch  of  that  which  almost  defies  delineation 
or  explication. 

1.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  then,  what  a  heritage  Cambridge 
has.  One  of  the  first  places  to  be  founded  in  our  New  Eng- 
land ;  the  abode  for  a  time  of  the  Hartford  Colony ;  the  home 
of  that  unique  group  of  men  of  whom  Thomas  Shepard  was  the 
leader  and  inspirer ;  by  reason  of  the  qualities  in  him,  and  in 
them,  selected  to  be  the  site  of  the  infant  college  ;  the  gather- 
ing-place of  the  first  ecclesiastical  synod  on  the  North  Amer- 
can  continent ;  the  place  where  the  first  book  in  America  was 
printed  ;  the  scene  of  many  of  the  noblest  passages  in  the  colo- 
nial history  of  New  England  ;  the  point  where  the  prows  of 
British  boats  touched  the  sand  as  the  march  on  Lexington  was 
begun  ;  the  soil  on  which  occurred  some  of  the  hardest  fight- 
ing of  that  eventful  day ;  the  gathering-place  of  the  colonists  ; 
the  point  of  departure  for  the  epoch-marking  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill ;  that  tree  still  standing  on  the  Common  under  which 
Washington  took  command  of  the  American  army  ;  the  centre 
of  the  army  in  the  fateful  siege  of  Boston ;  one  of  its  extant 
mansions  the  prison  of  Burgoyne  after  the  fatal  blow,  at  Sara- 
toga, to  British  supremacy  on  this  continent ;  notable,  from  the 
days  of  the  Revolution  to  this  hour,  for  many  great  events ; 
the  sender-f orth  of  the  first  company  to  be  received  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  nation  in  its  struggle  for  the  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion ;  an  intellectual  centre  unequaled,  on  the  whole,  by 
anything  on  the  hither  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  the  home  espe- 
cially of  three  great  poets,  two  of  them  among  the  greatest  in 
the  annals  of  literature,  one  of  them  endowed  in  so  unique  a 
manner  as  to  be  verily  amongst  the  immortals :  always  plain, 
simple,  democratic,  with  respect  for  the  poor  man  as  well  as  for 
the  rich,  and  for  intelligence  and  manliness  above  all  other 
things,  —  it  is  obvious  that  our  Cambridge,  so  favored  of  God 


90  "THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA.". 

beyond  any  community  in  this  hemisphere,  ought  to  have  been 
expected  to  be  the  place  where  something  unique  and  germinal 
in  its  relation  to  the  civic  and  ethical  well-being  of  this  land 
should  break  forth. 

2.  But,  passing  beyond  the  historical  significance  of  the  city, 
its  large  intellectual  meaning,  and  its  being  favored  of  God  in 
the  bestowal  upon  it  of  genius  and  of  poetry,  we  need  to  come 
to  the  nearer  years.  I  think  it  would  be  impossible  for  those 
streets  which  Lowell  had  trod,  and  for  the  slopes  where  he  had 
chanted  to  himself  the  "Biglow  Papers"  and  the  deathless 
"  Commemoration  Ode,"  to  be  other  than  almost  trembling  with 
passionate  desire  for  fair  play,  for  good  government,  for  the 
realization  of  the  rights  of  man,  and  for  the  fulfillment  of  the 
civic  and  moral  possibilities  of  all  dwelling  within  its  borders. 
Lowell  was  a  better  singer  of  good  politics  than  a  practical 
worker  in  its  details,  though  his  practical  services  in  several 
particulars  rank  high  in  the  annals  of  such  endeavor  ;  but  the 
spirit  of  Lowell,  and  of  his  friends,  in  this  regard,  has  for  now 
not  a  few  decades  been  haunting  our  streets  and  lanes,  entering 
our  homes,  and  dominating  our  council-boards.  It  is  now  a 
quarter  of  a  century  or  more,  therefore,  since  we  have  tolerated 
partisanship  in  our  municipal  affairs.  Other  fine  traits  and 
realizations  of  a  civic  nature  have  been  long  among  us :  the 
idea,  for  example,  of  municipal  office  as  a  municipal  trust,  the 
notion  that  the  city  must  be  administered  as  faithfully  and  saga- 
ciously as  any  business  concern  of  highest  standing ;  various 
memorable  battles  as  between  the  sons  of  Belial  and  the  chil- 
dren of  light  in  civic  directions,  which  had  stirred  our  city  pro- 
foundly prior  to  the  last  decade  ;  the  wonderfully  tonic  prestige 
of  large  victories  in  these  directions,  and  much  more  to  the 
same  purport.  All  this  constituted  our  more  immediate  politi- 
cal heritage  down  to  ten  years  ago. 

3.  It  was  in  this  condition  that  the  city  was,  as  it  turned  the 
milestone  of  1885,  and  faced  toward  1886.  It  had  had  a  glori- 
ous past.  That  past  was  such  as  to  make  it  all  alive  with  noblest 
civic  and  ethical  impulses.  That  past,  for  now  a  good  number 
of  years,  had  been  rendering  possible  the  abolition  of  partisan- 
ship in  municipal  affairs,  and  certain  great  and  victorious  strug- 
gles betwixt  the  baser  and  the  nobler  elements  in  the  city's 
life. 

But  now  there  was  creeping  like  a  paralysis  over  the  city  that 


"FROZEN  TRUTH."  91 

chief  modem  foe  to  good  civics,  the  power  of  the  rum  traffic. 
A  sharp  distinction  is  to  be  drawn  between  drink  itself,  and  the 
questions  having  to  do  with  it,  and  that  greater  abomination, 
the  organized,  covetous,  unscrupulous  traffic,  which,  making  mer- 
chandise of  human  souls  for  its  own  aggrandizement,  works  the 
most  fearful  evils  in  almost  all  dense  populations. 

Massachusetts,  by  her  local-option  law  of  1881,  had  been 
giving  her  cities  and  towns  the  opportunity  to  throw  off  this 
paralysis,  and  many  of  them  had  taken  advantage  of  it,  in- 
cluding our  border  city  of  Somerville,  which,  for  some  years, 
had  excluded  the  saloon.  The  result  was  that  Cambridge  had 
to  do  a  large  part  of  SomerviUe's  liquor  business  as  well  as 
her  own.  There  being  as  yet  no  population  limit  for  the  grant- 
ing of  licenses,  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  of  these  nefarious 
places  existed  within  the  city  ;  disorder  was  on  the  increase  in 
our  streets  ;  those  elements  which  always  attend  the  saloon  were 
becoming  dominant  at  the  city  hall ;  and  our  city  fathers  were 
so  persuaded  of  the  invulnerable  position  of  the  rum  power,  that 
they  considered  the  city's  vote  of  license  as  liberty  to  do  the 
most  absurd  things  at  its  behest.  One  of  these  transactions, 
the  notorious  DeWire  case  near  Shady  Hill,  produced  tremen- 
dous indignation  in  the  university,  in  addition  to  the  discontent 
which  was  widely  diffused  throughout  the  city. 

What  would  most  cities  have  done  under  such  circumstances  ? 
They  would  have  had  a  wild,  not  to  say  fanatic,  outburst  of 
indignation,  hot  speeches,  a  no-license  vote  for  one  year,  an  ill 
enforcement  of  the  vote,  and  after  twelve  months  rum  back 
again  worse  than  ever. 

Not  so  did  our  city.  Being  deeply  religious  as  it  is,  the 
churches  joined  together,  and  there  was  a  tremendous  religious 
campaign.  But  being  also  intensely  practical  as  the  city  is,  a 
large,  representative,  and  non-partisan  committee  was  organized, 
which  canvassed  our  entire  voting-lists  in  the  interest  of  no- 
license,  and  printed  a  paper  called  "  Frozen  Truth,"  which  was 
distributed  to  all  voters,  and  in  which  the  cold  facts  about  the 
saloon,  the  "  congealed  veracity  "  as  somebody  called  it,  were 
laid  before  our  people.  Moreover  this  committee  organized  a 
most  efficient  campaign,  personally,  at  the  polling-places  by  the 
use  of  check  lists,  and  so  forth. 

The  result  was,  in  December,  1886,  the  overthrow  of  the 
saloon  by  a  majority  of  566.     This  vote  did  not  take  effect 


92  "  THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 

under  our  statutes  until  the  first  of  the  following  May.  In  the 
mean  time  a  Law  Enforcement  Association  was  organized,  with 
the  paradoxical  purpose  of  never  enforcing  the  law ;  but,  the 
rather,  of  fixing  the  responsibility  upon  the  proper  ofiicers,  of 
supplying  them  with  information,  of  holding  up  their  hands,  of 
seeing  that  large  praise  came  to  them  for  all  faithful  work,  and 
of  focusing  the  intelligence  and  indignation  of  the  city  upon  all 
dereliction  of  duty  in  this  regard. 

4.  This  was  the  state  of  affairs  on  Sunday,  May  1,  1887,  a 
day  observed  religiously  by  the  churches  as  the  first  on  which 
the  city  had  escaped  from  its  great  enemy,  an  escape  which  has 
never  yet  been  nullified. 

The  saloon-keepers,  however,  were  cheerful.  They  held  on 
to  their  leases,  and  threatened  to  bury  us  the  next  year.  They 
reckoned  on  the  precedent  of  such  revulsions  in  other  cities, 
where  the  thorough  methods  employed  by  us  had  not  been  in 
use. 

Our  leaders  in  this  effort,  as  the  next  election  drew  near, 
went  around  among  our  principal  citizens,  asking,  in  the  in- 
terest simply  of  fair  play,  more  than  seven  months  in  which 
to  try  the  experiment ;  and  so  reasonable  were  our  people,  even 
many  of  those  who  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  permanent  exclu- 
sion of  the  saloon,  that  they  acceded  to  this  request. 

The  same  kind  of  campaign  as  that  of  1886,  only  much  fur- 
ther perfected  in  its  details,  was  waged  that  year ;  and,  though 
the  conflict  was  tremendous,  and  each  side  polled  nearly  1400 
more  votes  than  in  1886,  the  saloon  was  beaten  the  second  year 
by  the  identical  majority,  566,  which  had  first  abolished  it. 
Then  those  very  saloon-keepers,  who  had  boastfully  held  on  to 
their  leases,  hastened  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  quit  the  city  ;  and  in 
the  eight  campaigns  which  have  since  ensued,  the  same  stirring 
scenes  have  been  reenacted,  although  each  year  has  had  its  own 
distinctive  issues  in  detail  and  its  own  unique  and  glorious 
fight. 

5.  But  when  the  State  at  large,  after  two  or  three  years,  saw 
that  the  exclusion  of  the  saloon  had  come  to  Cambridge  to  stay, 
straightway  our  city  was  thrust  into  the  forefront,  as  that  one 
community  in  the  world  of  its  size  which  had  been  able  contin- 
uously, and  by  its  own  volition,  to  get  the  better  of  this  great 
curse. 

Consequently  our  literature,  our  speakers,  our   methods   of 


A    UNIQUE  TRIUMPH.  93 

campaigning,  in  fact,  everytliing  that  could  throw  light  on  our 
unique  struggle,  were  in  constant  demand  from  widely  over  the 
State,  and  from  beyond  it.  Chelsea,  in  particular,  being  in  a 
worse  condition  than  we  had  been,  and  in  a  county  involving 
great  difficulties  in  the  enforcement  of  liquor  laws,  studied  care- 
fully our  methods,  and  very  soon  following  them,  threw  out  the 
saloon,  and  thus  became,  hardly  less  than  Cambridge  herself, 
although  under  Cambridge's  inspiration,  an  argiunent  in  the 
same  direction. 

Space  does  not  permit  even  the  most  summary  account  of  the 
influence  which  Cambridge  has  thus  had  not  only  upon  the 
to^vns  and  cities  of  this  Commonwealth,  but  widely  over  New 
England,  and  beyond  New  England,  and  even  beyond  the 
United  States.  This  has  been  the  more  inevitable  because  of 
the  startling  and  convincing  array  of  results  of  our  saloon  exclu- 
sion, to  which,  most  briefly,  I  am  about  to  allude.  The  burden 
of  correspondence  which  has  thereby  come  upon  many  of  our 
people,  the  amount  of  time  and  strength  which  they  have 
spent  in  traveling  to  speak  on  the  subject  in  distant  places, 
and  the  proud  crown  of  glory  which  this  unique  triumph  has 
set  upon  the  brow  of  our  city,  cannot  here  be  described,  and  can 
hardly  be  imagined. 

6.  The  climax  of  all  this  was  reached  when,  in  the  election  of 
1895,  the  city,  realizing  that  its  vote  would  determine  the  char- 
acter of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  year  of  our  present  municipal 
organization,  gathered  itself  together,  and,  in  a  peculiarly  diffi- 
cult and  malignant  campaign  which  was  being  waged  on  behalf 
of  rum,  —  in  the  room  of  its  previous  majority  of  599,  and  of 
the  largest  majority  which  it  had  ever  cast,  namely  843,  —  broke 
all  records,  and  registered  1503  as  its  tenth  annual  verdict 
against  the  saloon.  That  memorable  day,  the  ringing  of  the 
bells  in  the  evening,  the  jubilee  meeting  that  was  held,  the  en- 
thusiasm, for  days  and  weeks  thereafter,  of  our  people  over  this 
unprecedented  victory,  this  tenth  milestone  of  our  success,  will 
never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  in  any  way  participated  in  the 
same. 

It  is  impossible  in  this  article  to  treat  this  general  subject 
with  any  fullness,  or  even  in  adequate  outline.  The  reader  is 
referred  to  Mr.  Edmund  A.  Whitman's  admirable  pamphlet, 
"  The  Cambridge  Idea  in  Temperance  Reform,"  prepared  as  a 
part  of  the  Massachusetts  exhibit  for  the  Columbian  Exposition, 


94 


"THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 


and  of  which  a  new  edition  was  published  in  aid  of  the  Ohio 
Anti-Saloon  Congress  of  January  of  the  present  year.  Happily 
this  treatise  is  electrotyped,  and  by  applying  to  Mr.  Whitman, 
can  be  reproduced  to  any  extent  that  may  be  desired,  whether 
for  use  in  this  State  or  beyond  it,  for  the  mere  cost  of  paper 
and  press-work.  Besides  this  classic  statement  on  the  subject 
by  one  to  whom,  almost  more  than  to  any  other  person,  our 
great  overtm-n  was  due,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  files  of  the 
"  Frozen  Truth,"  and  of  our  Cambridge  weeklies,  and  to  a  num- 
ber of  special  articles  prepared  by  various  persons,  and  par- 
ticularly by  the  longtime  chairman  of  our  Citizens'  No-License 
Committee,  Mr.  Frank  Foxcroft. 

All  that  can  here  be  further  said  in  this  connection  is  to  refer 
briefly,  first,  to  the  results,  and  then,  to  the  methods  of  our 
excluding  the  saloon.^ 

7.  As  the  result  of  the  exclusion  of  the  saloon,  though  doubt- 
less other  causes  have  had  some  part  in  the  same,  it  may  be 
mentioned  that  our  population  has  increased  nearly  twice  as  fast 
as  before  the  saloon  went ;  that  the  quality  of  the  increase  has 
much  improved ;  that  new  houses  began  to  be  built  twice  or 

^  Following  is  a  tabular  exhibit  of  the  vote  of  Cambridge  on  this  question 
since  the  State  Local  Option  Law  went  into  effect  in  1881 :  — 


TABULAR  EXHIBIT  OF  VOTK 


1881 

1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1893 
1894 
1895 


Yet. 
2,614 
2,772 
3,116 
3,659 
2,764 
2,344 
3,727 
3,819 
3,300 
3,611 
3,565 
4,763 
4,539 
4,500 
4,160 


No. 
2,608 
2,379 
2,522 
2,522 
2,234 
2,910 
4,293 
4,483 
3,793 
4,180 
4,051 
5,606 
5,329 
5,099 
5,663 


Yes 

Majority. 

6 

393 

694 

1,137 

530 


No 
Majority. 


566 
566 
664 
4d3 
569 
486 
843 
790 
699 
1,503 


Population  in  1887  (when  vote  took  effect)       .        somewhat  under     70,000 

Population  in  1896 about    84,000 

Employees  of  Cambridge  factories,  1890 14,208 


A    CLEAN  CITY  GOVERNMENT.  95 

thrice  as  rapidly ;  that  our  valuation  had  increased  —  some 
three  years  ago  when  such  statistics  were  most  exhaustively 
compiled  —  over  the  old  rate  of  increase  in  the  corresponding 
period  under  the  saloon,  $6,000,000,  enough,  it  should  be  said, 
to  bring  into  the  city  treasury,  on  the  average  rate  of  assess- 
ment, $90,000  clean  money,  in  the  room  of  perhaps  $60,000 
which  might  have  been  received  of  filthy  money  from  the  saloon  ; 
and  that,  instead  of  above  a  thousand  tramps  who  used  to  be 
accommodated  in  our  station  houses  annually,  hardly  more  than 
a  hundred  had  been  entertained  annually  during  the  same  space 
of  time.  Our  new  savings  banks  deposits,  moreover,  in  the  year 
referred  to  stood,  in  round  numbers,  $586,000,  as  against 
$140,000  the  last  year  of  the  saloon  ;  while  the  new  depositors 
of  that  year  were  1992,  as  against  861  the  last  year  of  the  saloon. 
Furthermore,  not  a  small  part  of  these  increased  dejsosits  was 
going  back  to  workingmen  for  the  building  of  their  homes ;  and 
this  says  nothing  of  the  upspringing  of  several  prosperous  cooper- 
ative banks  which  were  doing  much  the  same  thing.  Our  manu- 
facturers, our  merchants,  and  our  employers  of  labor  in  general, 
testified  year  by  year,  through  the  columns  of  the  "  Frozen 
Truth,"  to  the  increased  sobriety,  industry,  skiU,  and  efficiency 
of  their  work-people,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the  saloon. 
Physicians,  clergymen,  charity  workers,  and  all  persons  at  all 
familiar  with  the  actual  conditions  of  the  great  bulk  of  our 
population,  bore  witness  in  the  same  direction.  But  all  this, 
I  must  remind  the  reader,  is  only  a  partial  summary  of  the  tan- 
gible specific  results  growing  out  of  the  exclusion  of  the  saloon. 
I  indicate  in  addition  —  hardly  more,  however,  than  mention- 
ing them  —  three  supreme  results :  — 

(1)  Our  city  government  has  been  cleansed,  steadily  improved, 
and  continuously  elevated  in  its  ideals  and  in  the  quality  of  its 
work.  The  young  woman  who,  with  her  "  best  young  man,"  go- 
ing down  Main  Street  one  moonlight  night,  paused  with  him  be- 
fore our  new  city  hall,  and,  after  a  friendly  dispute  about  what 
was  the  chief  glory  of  that  building,  "  scored,"  as  the  young  man 
admitted,  by  declaring  that  the  most  beautiful  thing  about  that 
building  was  that  there  had  never  been  a  liquor  license  signed 
within  it,  —  expressed,  in  a  nutshell,  the  substance  of  the  matter 
in  this  direction. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  previously  existing  lines  of  division 
have  been  wiped  out.     Catholics  have  come  to  love  Protestants, 


96  "  THE   CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 

and  Protestants  to  love  Catholics.  Evangelicals  have  come  to 
love  unevangelicals,  and  unevangelicals  to  love  evangelicals. 
Betwixt  the  so-called  "  religious  "  and  the  so-called  "non-reli- 
gious," as  notably  in  the  Prospect  Union,  the  offensive  lines 
have  to  a  considerable  extent  disappeared.  Betwixt  Republi- 
cans, too,  and  Democrats,  and  Third  Party  people,  and  so  forth, 
the  same  state  of  things  has  come  to  obtain.  Those  hateful 
lines,  also,  of  local  jealousy  or  antagonism  between  the  original 
nuclei  of  the  city.  East  Cambridge,  Cambridgeport,.  North  Cam- 
bridge, and  Old  Cambridge,  have  been  largely  obliterated,  so 
that  we  have  become  one  people.  This  has  been  the  outcome 
of  that  great  price  of  agitation  and  of  united  toil  whereby  we 
have  obtained  our  newer  freedom.  Father  Scully  put  it  right, 
in  a  meeting  to  open  the  no-license  campaign  of  1894,  when  he 
stood  up  and  said :  "  The  saloon  seems  to  have  been  among  us 
to  keep  us  by  the  ears  one  against  another.  We  Catholics  did 
not  like  you  Protestants,  and  you  Protestants  did  not  like  us 
Catholics.  But  now  that  the  saloon  is  gone,  we  love  one  another, 
and  are  nobly  helpful  one  toward  another."  And  when  the 
Catholic  bell  of  St.  Mary's  leads  off,  and  the  Trinitarian  bell 
of  Prospect  Street,  and  the  Unitarian  bell  of  Austin  Street 
follow  after  it  in  that  threefold  chiming  which,  each  election 
night,  tells  to  our  city  and  to  our  neighbor  municipalities  the 
tidings  of  our  annual  victory  over  the  saloon,  here  again  —  as 
with  the  young  woman  and  her  lover  regarding  our  redeemed 
civics — is  the  symbol  of  that  new  unity  which  has  come  to 
Cambridge. 

(3)  There  is  one  other  result,  the  highest  of  all.  It  is  that 
the  name  of  which  is  put  in  quotation  marks  at  the  head  of  this 
article.  For  when,  having  a  polling-list  of  12,000  or  13,000, 
and  being  unable  year  by  year  (until  this  last)  to  get  a  majority 
greater  than  843  (though  it  never  feU  lower  than  486),  it  was 
obvious  each  year  that  the  city,  by  but  the  turn  of  a  few  votes 
in  a  hundred,  might  bring  back  the  saloon,  it  could  not  but  fol- 
low that  the  friends  of  the  saloon,  aided  by  the  rum  money  of 
Boston  and  of  other  places,  would  make  a  tremendous  fight. 
Such  has  been  the  fact ;  and  consequently,  every  year,  the  result 
has  been  in  exceeding  great  doubt,  and  our  struggle  has  been 
something  fearful.  It  has  followed  from  this  fierce  annual 
conflict  that  the  whole  city  has  been  aroused  ;  that  we  have  had, 
annually,  a  month  of  what  has  been  virtually  a  public  insti- 


"AS   TO  METHODS."  97 

tiite  of  civics  and  of  practical  ethics ;  and  that,  to  a  degree 
which  no  one  not  a  resident  can  realize,  all  the  best  forces  of 
our  city,  irrespective  of  creed,  or  politics,  or  social  rank,  have 
been  fused  together  and  uplifted  with  one  common  moral  and 
spiritual  impulse.  It  was  about  midway  of  that  struggle  that 
suddenly,  as  I  stated  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  this  article, 
but  as  naturally  as  great  thoughts  are  born  ever  out  of  the 
fierce  travail  of  our  race,  the  phrase,  "The  Cambridge  Idea" 
broke  in  upon  our  Cambridge  speech.  Of  this  I  shall  have  a 
word  more  to  say  as  I  close.  Let  it  suffice  now  to  remark  that 
in  this  idealism,  this  stirring  up  of  the  largest  and  best  civic 
thought  of  which  every  right-meaning  person  in  the  city  is 
capable,  the  supreme  result  of  our  ten  years  of  struggle  regis- 
ters itself. 

8.  Only  a  few  sentences  now,  as  to  methods.  These  have 
been :  (1)  No  candidates,  —  that  is,  as  no-license  men,  we 
have  not,  in  that  capacity,  had  anything  to  do  with  candidates  ; 
(2)  No  politics,  —  in  the  same  sense ;  (3)  No  temperance 
shibboleths,  —  that  is,  a  platform  broad  enough  to  include  all 
haters  of  the  saloon,  even  though  they  might  be  drinking  men  ; 
(4)  Dividing  the  question,  —  that  is,  the  concentrating  of  atten- 
tion solely  upon  this  issue,  Shall,  or  shall  not  the  saloon  come 
back  ?  (5)  A  campaign  of  facts,  —  that  is,  the  leaving  of 
abstractions,  and  a  thorough  inductive  inquiry  as  to  the  rela- 
tive effects  of  the  saloon  with  us  and  the  saloon  gone  ;  (6)  An 
entirely  independent,  and  yet  an  absolutely  harmonious  and 
mutually  helpful  twofold  campaign,  —  the  one  religious,  in 
the  Catholic  and  Protestant  churches,  and  the  other  purely 
secular  and  along  such  lines  that  all  right-minded  men  could 
join  upon  the  one  issue  raised  ;  (7)  Hard  work,  —  work  as  if 
one  vote  might  decide  the  question. 

9.  Leaving  now  the  resume  wliich  I  have  given  of  the  most 
distinctive  movement,  in  civic  directions,  which  has  marked  our 
city  from  1886  until  this  present,  a  few  words  require  to  be 
added  about  the  relation  of  all  this  to  the  larger  life  of  Cam- 
bridge. Let  no  man,  then,  suppose  that  there  has  been  any- 
thing fanatical  about  this  movement.  It  has  been  eminently 
rational,  sane,  and  practical.  When  President  Eliot,  addressing 
an  immense  audience  in  Union  Hall  two  or  three  years  since, 
stated  how  radically  in  temperance  theory  he  differed  probably 
from  most  of  those  present,  but  proceeded  to  testify  that  he 


98  "  THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA.'' 

had  for  several  years  voted  No,  and  was  about  to  do  so  again, 
partly  because  a  license  policy  could  not,  in  the  present  temper 
of  the  city,  be  enforced,  but  more  because  the  city  had  been 
educated  up  to  the  point  where  it  could  do  without  the  saloon, 
he  gave  to  our  movement  the  highest  praise,  from  a  large  point 
of  view,  that  it  has  ever  received.  The  praise  was  the  more 
noble  because  it  was  entirely  and  absolutely  true.  Further- 
more, the  city  got  upon  this  thing  because  it  had  to ;  because 
the  forces  already  at  work  within  itself  drove  it  along  this  path 
as  by  an  irresistible  impulse.  It  was  a  stage  of  civic  evolution 
which  had  to  come.  Still  further,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that, 
though  the  exclusion  of  the  saloon  and  the  superb  cognate 
results  which  have  followed  therefrom  have  constituted  the 
most  striking  outward  feature  of  all  these  unfoldings,  never- 
theless, this,  as  it  were,  has  been  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket 
beside  that  larger  movement  of  which  it  has  been  a  part, 
whereby  a  profound  civic  sense,  civic  consciousness,  civic  pur- 
pose, and  civic  consecration  have  become  the  normal  temper  of 
our  great  and  heterogeneous  population.  As  a  New  Testament 
writer  urges  his  readers  to  "  lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the 
sin  which  doth  so  easily  beset"  them,  so  Cambridge,  joining 
battle  with  one  special  besetting  sin,  has  toned  up  all  the  forces 
which  make  for  righteousness  within  it,  has  won  for  itself  a 
living  unity,  has  brought  itself  under  the  sway  of  vast  construc- 
tive ideals,  and  has  thus  been,  in  very  deed,  laying  aside  every 
weight.  And  as  1  believe  it  is  true  that,  in  our  university, 
civics  and  economics  are  taught  as  they  are  nowhere  else  taught 
in  America,  so  I  believe  that  the  young  men  let  out  from  its  lec- 
ture-rooms have  only  to  repair  to  our  city  hall,  and  to  walk 
through  all  our  borders,  to  find  practical  illustrations  of  good 
civics  and  economics  which  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the  New 
World. 

10.  Thus  has  it  come  to  pass  that,  two  hundred  and  sixty-five 
years  from  the  founding  of  Cambridge,  and  fifty  years  from  the 
organization  of  its  present  form  of  government,  the  most  glori- 
ous decade  of  its  entire  history  is  also  rounding  out.  For  the 
sole  purpose  of  great  history,  of  high  intellectual  privilege,  and 
of  the  blessings  of  poetry  and  other  supreme  manifestations  of 
genius,  is  to  produce  fruit.  JVoblesse  oblige.  And  all  that 
Thomas  Shepard  and  the  bringing  hither  of  the  college  and  the 
glorious  storied  days  of  the  municipality,  all  that  the  Washing- 


""THE  secret:'  99 

ton  Elm  and  Craigie  House  and  Elmwood  and  our  cis-Atlantic 
Westminster  at  Mount  Auburn  might  presage,  have  begim  to 
fulfill  themselves  in  that  high  place,  as  regards  civic  and  ethical 
values,  out  into  which  Cambridge  has  been  girding  her  loins 
to  march,  and  unto  the  realization  of  which  her  plainest  and 
humblest  people,  and  her  most  intelligent  and  highly  endowed, 
are  alike  consecrated.  Thus,  moreover,  was  it,  that  when,  four 
or  five  years  ago,  there  broke  into  Cambridge  speech  —  so  sud- 
denly, with  such  energy,  and  with  such  large  significance,  that 
these  can  hardly  yet  be  realized  —  the  phrase,  "  The  Cambridge 
Idea,"  that  spiritual  ideal,  that  conception  of  a  city  of  God  on 
earth,  that  indefinable  aspiration  through  which  alone  either 
individuals  or  communities  may  come  to  their  highest,  found  a 
language  and  a  watchword  which  held  within  itself  the  secret  of 
our  city's  destiny. 

— ■  Should  I  be  quite  true  to  my  profession,  or  to  a  habit 
which  I  have  had  in  Cambridge  during  the  best  years  of  my 
life,  if  I  failed,  as  I  close,  to  drop  into  a  few  sentences  of  spe- 
cial exhortation  in  naming  a  very  particular  type  of  reasons 
why  we  should  all  be  dedicated  to  "  The  Cambridge  Idea,"  and 
should  go  forward  with  our  whole  might  into  the  realization  of 
that  measureless  and  as  yet  unimaginable  future  which,  through 
its  puissance,  lies  before  our  dear  city  ? 

For  students  are  coming  hither  by  the  ten  thousand,  from 
decade  to  decade.  They  will  not  be  able  to  resist  that  into 
which  it  is  possible  for  "  The  Idea  "  to  make  Cambridge.  Ora- 
tors, poets,  jurists,  statesmen,  educators,  scientists,  artists,  re- 
formers of  the  time  that  is  to  be,  wiU  be  ever  among  us.  As 
they  shall  stroll  up  and  down  the  Charles,  as  they  shall  linger 
in  our  entrancing  places,  —  like  the  Cam  banks  at  the  elder 
Cambridge,  like  the  Long  Walk  at  Oxford,  like  the  terraces  at 
Edinburgh,  —  shall  we  not,  by  what  we  shall  make  Cambridge, 
so  build  the  ennobling,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful  into  their 
lives  that,  through  them,  we  shall  bless  inestimably  the  whole 
world  ?     That,  brothers,  is  our  task. 

But,  one  asks,  will  the  gi-eatest  genius  whom  all  this  shall 
enrich  be  a  university  man  ?  Probably  not.  Probably  be  will 
be  the  child  of  some  poor  operative  in  one  of  our  Cambridge 
factories,  or  of  some  artisan  or  small  tradesman  among  us. 
But  the  beautifid  and  noble  Cambridge  wiU  touch  his  soul,  and 
the  divine  mystery  of  existence  will  work  itself  out  in  him  and 


100  "  THE  CAMBRIDGE  IDEA." 

through  him,  as  it  did  in  and  through  the  boy  by  the  Ayr,  and 
the  boy  by  the  Avon.  For  Nature  likes  to  be  original,  and  to 
have  her  own  way ;  and  the  most  that  we  can  do  to  help  her  — 
as  was  done  by  the  Ayr  and  by  the  Avon  —  is  to  make  every- 
thing beautiful  and  true.  This  shall  we  not  do  in  Cambridge  ? 
Shall  not  "The  Idea  "  have  its  full  scope?  Then,  as  surely  as 
tides  rise  and  moons  fill  out  their  slender  crescents,  the  city's 
age  of  intelligence,  of  inspiring  history,  and  of  great  poetry 
shall  be  even  more  in  the  future  than  in  the  glorious  past. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

By  FREDERIC  H.  VIAUX. 

When  the  lone  pioneer  Blaxton,  voluntary  Crusoe  of  Shaw- 
mut,  climbed  to  the  peak  of  the  hill  at  the  foot  of  which  he  had 
pitched  his  solitary  camp,  he  beheld  to  the  westward  two  great 
bays,  barely  held  apart  at  the  base  of  the  slopes  by  a  low,  nar- 
row path  disappearing  in  the  highlands  beyond.  In  either  of 
these  spacious  coves  the  navies  of  the  world  of  the  time  might 
have  found  ample  anchorage.  A  winding  river,  flowing  down 
from  the  westerly  hills,  broadened  into  a  noble  estuary  that 
formed  a  land-locked  harbor,  and,  narrowing  again,  rushed  with 
a  sister  stream  in  confluence  towards  the  open  sea. 

It  was  a  bountiful  stream  of  fresh  water  that  brought  Win- 
throp  and  his  men  to  the  hills  of  Blaxton's  peninsula,  on  the 
slopes  of  which  they  settled  and  faced  the  blasts  of  the  east 
wind.  Had  these  life-giving  waters  gushed  forth  on  the  farther 
bank  of  the  great  bay  to  the  north,  the  Boston  of  the  pioneers 
would  have  been  founded  there,  —  there  would  have  been  the 
sheltered  liarbor  and  the  seat  of  commerce,  with  the  city  of  the 
future  gradually  encircling  the  great  inland  haven  protected  by 
Blaxton's  hills  from  the  ocean  winds  and  storms. 

If  Winthi'op  and  the  new-comers  turned  their  backs  on  the 
estuary  of  the  Charles,  as  a  port,  there  were  some  who,  allured 
by  the  gentle  sloj)es  of  the  opposite  shores,  crossed  it  in  search 
of  fields  to  till  and  meadows  for  pasture.  But  it  was  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  (1660)  after  their  coming  before  they 
found  courage  to  span  the  river  with  a  rude  bridge  at  its  nar- 
rowest point.  Thereafter  they  lived  on  and  on  with  the  most 
meagre  means  of  communication  with  the  parent  settlement, 
despite  the  dignity  of  a  college  foundation,  and  the  war  of  the 
Revolution  had  been  fought  and  independence  won,  the  Consti- 
tution had  been  adopted  and  Washington  was  President  of  the 
United  States,  before  the  people  finally  abandoned  their  uncer- 


102  THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

tain  ferries  and  spanned  the  river  with  a  causeway  and  bridge, 
thus  gaining  ready  access  to  Blaxton's  hills  and  the  great  town 
of  the  day  that  had  grown  up  upon  and  around  them. 

That  part  of  the  original  New  Towne  which  is  now  Cam- 
bridge held,  in  1793,  when  the  first  bridge  to  Boston  was 
opened,  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  coming  of  the 
forefathers,  but  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  houses,  which  shel- 
tered twelve  hundred  souls.  That  the  new  link  across  the 
Charles  was  the  most  happy  material  event  that  had  happened 
to  Cambridge  since  its  foundation  —  the  college,  of  course, 
excepted  —  was  proven  by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  town  that 
at  once  followed  its  opening.  The  twelve  hundred  of  1793 
became  twenty-four  hundred  in  1808,  and  obtained  another 
bridge,  this  time  from  Lechraere  Point. 

It  was  the  northern  bay  which  had  kept  Boston  and  Cam- 
bridge apart  so  long  with  the  breadth  of  its  waters  and  the  wide 
stretches  of  its  marshes  and  flats.  These  tide-covered  lowlands 
skirted  the  town  its  entire  easterly  and  southerly  sides  from 
Charlestown  to  Watertown,  a  distance  of  nearly  five  miles. 
More  than  a  third  in  extent  of  what  is  now  Cambridge  was 
lapped  by  the  spring-tides  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  century. 
To  the  east  a  mile  of  lowlands  lay  between  the  town  and  the 
channel  of  the  Charles.  As  long  as  an  abundance  of  tillable 
land  satisfied  a  sparse  population,  the  marshes,  as  yet  undefiled, 
performed  auxiliary  service  to  the  farmer  with  their  supplies  of 
salt  hay,  and  the  flats,  as  yet  untainted,  gave  him  the  mussel 
and  the  clam  in  plenty.  The  yield  of  the  grass  gave  but  slight 
value  to  the  riparian  lands.  It  was  not  until  the  people  grew 
in  such  numbers  as  to  exhaust  the  uplands,  that  any  attempt 
was  made  to  reclaim  the  lowlands  for  habitation  or  commerce. 
The  bridge  of  1793,  which  became  the  great  highway  from  the 
towns  of  Middlesex  to  the  markets  of  Boston,  and  so  quickly 
doubled  the  population  of  Cambridge,  gave  the  first  impetus 
to  the  work  of  pushing  back  the  sea.  Its  long  causeway  was 
laboriously  made  over  the  marshes,  and,  later,  little  by  little,  a 
rod  of  land  was  gained  from  the  waters  here  and  there  on  either 
side  as  the  increasing  traflic  justified  the  enterprise  of  shop  or 
of  inn.  The  new  prosperity  of  the  town  awakened  the  ambi- 
tion of  the  more  sanguine.  Why  suffer  Cambridge  to  be  merely 
a  roadway  to  the  capital  town,  when  the  great  basin  of  the 
Charles  offered  as  ample  a  roadstead  as   the  harbor  below  ? 


MARSHES  RECLAIMED.  103 

Let  the  market-wagons  end  their  journey  in  Cambridge  and 
there  exchange  their  burdens  for  the  freights  of  the  world 
brought  direct  to  the  wharves  of  Cambridge.  Why  tamely 
suffer  Boston  to  monopolize  the  commerce  of  the  seas,  when 
Salem  and  Newburyport  and  New  Bedford  successfully  dis- 
puted for  a  share  ?  Out  of  such  ambitions  grew  the  ditch 
canals  of  the  new  port  of  Cambridge,  and  the  laying  out,  on  a 
grand  scale  for  the  day,  of  the  Broad  Way  leading  over  the 
marshes  to  the  high  lands.  But  the  enterprise,  praiseworthy 
as  was  its  conception,  languished,  and  dashed  the  hopes  of  its 
courageous  promoters.  Like  the  bridge,  however,  it  stimulated 
settlement  upon  the  marshes ;  for  the  excavations  of  the  canals 
were  cast  up  on  either  side,  and  strips  of  made  land  grew  along 
the  new  water-ways  and  gave  room  for  wharf  landings  and 
desultory  structures.  Similar  results  followed  the  opening  of 
the  Craigie  Bridge,  in  1809,  in  East  Cambridge. 

The  projection  of  the  railroad  across  the  eastern  marshes, 
after  Cambridge  became  a  city,  divided  their  expanse  with  its 
raised  embankment  for  rail  service  into  two  almost  equal  parts. 
Although  a  narrow  culvert  here  and  there  half  admitted  the 
pressing  tide,  a  rampart  was  thus  formed  that  kept  the  great 
tract  of  lowlands  between  it  and  the  uplands  comparatively 
dry  and  firm ;  and  the  establishment  of  industries  on  the 
barren  lands,  along  the  new  path  of  the  iron  horse,  was  en- 
couraged. Thus  by  the  creation  of  the  bridges  and  of  the  rail- 
road, great  sections  of  the  marshes  were  cut  off  from  the  inroads 
of  the  sea,  and  invited  from  their  exceeding  cheapness  those  of 
means  too  small  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  the  far  more  costly  solid 
lands.  These  for  the  most  part  camped  on  the  wastes  as  they 
were,  content  to  raise  them  by  gradual  process,  if  at  all,  with 
the  scant  refuse  of  their  homes.  With  a  blindness  to  the  inev- 
itable outcome  of  such  ill-conditioned  settlements  that  seems 
strange  to  us  now,  the  municipality  permitted  their  haphazard 
growth  and  continuance  until  their  offensive  conditions  threat- 
ened the  well-being  of  the  whole  city,  and  finally  compelled  an 
interference  so  costly  as  to  burden  for  a  time  the  public  re- 
sources. Extensive  areas  of  the  original  marshes  were  thus 
reclaimed  largely  out  of  the  common  purse.  It  would  have 
been  well  in  the  light  of  what  we  know  now,  if  a  long  step 
further  had  been  taken,  and  the  entire  littoral  of  the  city  had 
been  then  condemned  to  public  uses  ;  for  private  capital  con- 


104  •       THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

tinued  to  shrink  from  the  hazardous  enterprise  of  reclaiming 
these  border  lands,  so  forlorn  was  the  outlook  for  their  commer- 
cial utilization.  And  so  the  outskirt  river-lands  remained  as  a 
standing  menace,  and  as  the  people  grew  in  numbers,  became 
more  and  more  an  offense  to  sight  and  smell,  a  desolation, 
forming  a  forbidding  entrance  to  a  beautiful  and  famous  city. 

Meanwhile,  Boston  had  been  early  forced,  through  the  con- 
finement of  her  narrow  limits,  to  overcome  the  handicap  of  the 
tides  with  laborious  seizures  of  the  encompassing  lowlands. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  large  areas  of  tide- 
covered  lands  were  successively  reclaimed  and  quickly  occupied. 
The  great  northern  basin  was  in  turn  attacked  with  vigor,  until 
half  its  water-lands  was  condemned  to  the  uses  of  man.  The 
Commonwealth,  successor  to  the  old  rights  of  the  Crown  in  sub- 
merged lands,  took  part  in  the  work  of  recovery,  and  helped  to 
solve  the  problem  of  necessary  expansion  at  large  profit  both  of 
money  and  of  urban  advantage.  A  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
the  narrow  neck  of  land,  so  low  as  to  be  often  washed  by  the 
spring-tides,  that  Blaxton  beheld  from  his  hilltop  disappearing 
into  the  western  highlands,  had  by  man's  work  grown  far 
broader  than  the  peninsula  of  which  he  was  the  original  settler. 

It  is  to  the  outcome  of  the  work  of  the  State  and  of  its 
capital  city  in  reclaiming  the  southern  shoals  of  the  great 
estuary  of  the  Charles  that  Cambridge  owes  in  large  measure 
the  improvement  of  its  own  riparian  lands.  For  among  the 
highways  that  were  run  for  the  people's  convenience  over  the 
commonwealth  lands  was  West  Chester  Park,  which  crossed 
all  the  great  arteries  of  the  city,  and,  carried  as  it  was  straight 
to  the  river's  bank,  clearly  invited  extension  over  the  waters  to 
the  sister  community  beyond.  Again  Boston,  awakened  at  this 
time  by  the  example  of  other  great  municipalities,  began  to 
consider  seriously  the  acquirement  of  park  areas.  A  beautiful 
system  of  open  places  was  outlined  in  1876,  and,  of  the  many 
attractive  spots  suggested  here  and  there  throughout  the  city 
for  common  use,  it  was  officially  proclaimed  that  the  gem  of 
them  all  would  be  the  great  interior  basin  of  the  Charles. 

The  building  of  West  Chester  Park  to  the  river's  edge  fore- 
told its  ultimate  extension  to  the  opposite  bank.  The  public 
suggestion  of  the  adornment  of  the  Boston  littoral  encouraged  the 
idea  of  its  duplication  on  the  northern  shore.  The  proprietors 
of  the  Cambridge  lowlands  took  heart,  and  began  to  dream  of  a 


"THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  FUTURE."  105 

bright  future  for  these  hitherto  worthless  wastes.  To  the  adorn- 
ment of  the  basin,  commerce  of  every  kind,  long  hampered  by  the 
hindrance  of  the  manifold  bridges,  must  give  way,  and  only  fine 
habitations  face  the  wide  esplanades  on  either  side.  For  such 
purposes  the  Cambridge  shore,  that  caught  the  sunshine  of  the 
entire  day,  was  far  superior  to  the  Boston  bank.  The  summer 
breezes  from  the  Brookline  hills,  gathering  cool  refreshment  as 
they  swept  over  the  bay,  shunned  the  southern  shore  to  bring 
full  benefaction  to  the  Cambridge  lowlands.  Here  was  a  solid 
foimdation  of  clay  and  gravel  near  the  surface,  while  the  silt 
of  centuries  had  lain  deep  on  the  other  side.  When  the  bridge 
was  built  across  the  bay  to  the  fine  home  quarter  of  Boston, 
the  remote  lands  of  Cambridge  were  brought  conveniently  near 
to  this  and  all  other  centres  of  the  capital  city ;  furthermore, 
these  lands  were  in  the  heart  of  what  was  to  be  the  great 
metropolis  of  the  future,  when  Boston  and  its  fringe  of  beauti- 
ful cities  and  towns  should  come  together  under  a  single  name 
and  assume  a  place  among  the  great  cities  of  the  world. 

As  soon  as  the  stress  of  the  commercial  disturbance  of  the 
seventies  was  relaxed,  the  first  step  forward  in  the  general  im- 
provement of  the  Cambridge  shore  of  the  basin  was  taken.  In 
the  summer  of  1880,  the  proprietors  of  two  thirds  of  the  low- 
lands were  brought  together  in  conference.  Out  of  their  delib- 
erations sprang  an  agreement  to  make  common  interest  in  a 
work  of  improvement,  which  was  projected  on  broad  lines. 
The  submerged  lands  lying  between  Main  Street  on  the  north, 
the  Grand  Junction  Railroad  on  the  west,  and  the  bay  of  the 
Charles  on  the  south,  formed  an  irregular  triangle,  covering  an 
area  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifteen  acres,  greater  in  extent 
than  the  Back  Bay  district  of  Boston  between  Boylston  Street 
and  the  river.  There  were  no  structures  of  any  kind  on  this 
territory  except  along  the  line  of  Main  Street,  The  water  line 
from  bridge  to  bridge  of  the  lands  was  about  nine  thousand 
feet,  nearly  two  miles,  in  length.  The  northerly  half  of  the  dis- 
trict was  almost  entirely  flats,  uncovered  only  at  low  tide.  A 
tongue  of  marsh,  with  a  fine  gravel  beach,  known  as  Whitte- 
more's  Point,  made  out  into  the  waters  in  the  centre  of  the 
lands,  and  bej^ond  this,  to  the  south,  the  flats  were  nearly 
equal  in  extent.  Great  indentations  had  been  formerly  made 
in  these  marshes  for  material  to  fill  lowlands  in  the  old  westerly 
end  of  Boston.     It  was  planned  to  embrace  the  whole  of  this 


106  THE   CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

triangular  territory  in  a  harmonious  scheme  of  development 
for  a  residential  quarter  of  the  first  class  with  an  ornamental 
esplanade  two  hundred  feet  wide,  contained  by  a  substantial 
sea-wall  fronting  the  water,  extending  from  bridge  to  bridge, 
in  complement  of  the  proposed  embankment  on  the  Boston  side. 
The  material  for  filling  the  lands  was  to  be  taken  from  the 
ample  stretches  of  gravel  and  sand  in  the  basin  and  appurte- 
nant to  the  territory.  Thus  the  reclamation  of  the  lands  would 
be  followed  by  the  removal  of  the  nuisance  of  the  offensive 
outer  flats,  and  a  full  basin  of  water,  independent  of  the  tides, 
would  be  created  fronting  the  broad  esplanade.  Effort  was 
to  be  made  to  hasten  the  construction  of  the  bridge  from  West 
Chester  Park,  the  extension  of  which  across  the  river  would 
strike  the  territory  to  be  improved  at  a  central  point. 

Appeal  was  made  to  the  legislature  of  1881  for  authority  to 
permit  the  proprietors  to  unite  in  carrying  out  their  enterprise 
of  improvement,  and  liberal  corporate  powers  were  granted 
them  under  the  name  of  the  Charles  River  Embankment  Com- 
pany. The  esplanade  two  hundred  feet  in  width  was  provided 
for,  to  be  approjjriated  to  public  use,  and  a  right  of  eminent 
domain  to  project  it  beyond  the  limits  of  the  combined  owner- 
ship of  the  incorporators  to  the  bridges  at  either  end  as  ter- 
mini was  granted.  The  capital  of  the  company  was  fixed  at 
not  less  than  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  with  permission  to 
increase  the  amount  to  not  exceeding  two  millions  of  dollars. 
Authority  was  granted  the  city  of  Boston  by  the  same  General 
Court  to  begin  the  improvement  of  the  river  bank  between 
Craigie  and  West  Boston  bridges.  The  following  year  power 
was  granted  by  the  legislature  to  Boston  and  Cambridge  to 
build  conjointly  a  bridge  over  the  bay  of  the  Charles  from  a 
point  on  Beacon  Street,  to  be  determined  in  concurrence,  and 
the  city  council  of  each  city  made  an  appropriation  sufficient 
to  secure  soundings  for  piers  and  plans  for  a  structure.  Early 
in  1883,  committees  of  the  two  city  governments  agreed  upon 
the  location  of  the  bridge  as  an  extension  of  the  lines  of  West 
Chester  Park.  In  February  of  the  same  year,  the  incorporators 
of  the  new  Charles  River  Embankment  Company,  after  a  vexa- 
tious delay,  took  conveyance  of  about  one  hundred  acres  of  the 
land  within  the  territory  to  be  reclaimed,  and,  in  conjunction 
with  other  proprietors  controlling  some  fifty  additional  acres, 
began  the  work  of  improvement.    The  first  section  of  retaining- 


THE  HARVARD  BRIDGE.  107 

wall,  one  thousand  feet  in  length,  was  built  on  a  solid  founda- 
tion of  gravel  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  1883,  and  a  large 
quantity  of  material  was  excavated  by  dredges  from  the  flats 
fronting  the  wall  and  deposited  on  the  lands  behind. 

This  was  the  first  material  work  done  towards  the  adornment 
of  the  Charles  River  basin  and  the  devotion  of  its  shores  to 
public  uses.  Boston  began  what  is  now  her  Charlesbank  some 
time  later.  Cambridge,  recognizing  the  vast  importance  of 
the  successful  improvement  of  the  large  districts  of  offensive 
lands  on  her  border  at  private  cost,  and  appreciating  the  magni- 
tude and  the  difficulties  of  the  enterprise  of  the  Embankment 
Company,  wisely  relieved  it  from  the  burden  of  increased  tax- 
ation for  a  period  of  ten  years,  and  in  return  the  company 
obliged  itself  to  build  over  its  lands  a  wide  approach  to  the  pro- 
posed bridge,  and  to  fulfill  other  requirements.  Further,  the 
city  authorities  did  all  in  their  power  to  hasten  the  construction 
of  the  new  avenue  across  the  Charles.  Obstruction  to  the 
measure  was  prolonged  in  the  city  council  of  Boston,  in  spite 
of  the  petition  of  many  of  the  leading  citizens  and  of  the  heavi- 
est tax-payers  of  that  city,  until,  in  1887,  recourse  was  had  to 
the  General  Court  for  relief,  and  a  mandatory  act  was  obtained 
enforcing  the  construction  of  the  bridge  and  providing  for  a 
commission  with  full  powers  to  accomplish  that  end.  The 
bridge  act  of  1887  was  unique  in  that  no  former  legislature  had 
exerted  such  compulsory  powers  in  enforcing  a  public  work  of 
this  order  upon  two  of  the  larger  cities  of  the  State,  one  of  which 
through  a  representative  body  had  declared  by  a  large  majority 
for  its  indefinite  postponement. 

The  passage  of  the  enforcing  act  was  followed  by  a  quick 
beginning  of  the  work  on  the  bridge  structure  under  the  com- 
mission in  charge,  and  the  work  of  reclaiming  the  lowlands 
within  the  territory  of  the  Embankment  Company  was  resumed. 
The  completion  of  the  Charlesbank,  in  Boston,  which  was  at 
once  taken  into  popular  favor  as  the  most  health-giving  of  all  the 
new  commons,  directed  general  attention  to  the  opportunities  of 
the  Charles  River.  Agitation  was  begun  for  the  extension  of  the 
Boston  embankment  farther  up  the  stream  ;  the  question  of  the 
closing  of  navigation  on  its  waters  to  mast  vessels,  thus  defi- 
nitely devoting  its  banks  to  residential  and  park  purposes,  was 
warmly  taken  up ;  the  pollution  of  its  tides  by  noxious  sewage 
was  denounced,  and  an  era  of  popular  appreciation  of  the  noble 


108  THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

river  and  its  broad  estuary  set  in,  out  of  which  is  fast  coming 
the  fulfillment  of  its  destiny  as  the  most  beautiful  water-park 
in  America.  The  general  discussion  of  Charles  River  questions 
led  to  the  creation  of  a  special  commission  (1891)  charged  with 
inquiring  into  and  reporting  upon  the  proper  treatment  for  the 
public  weal  of  the  historic  stream.  This  was  followed  by  the 
recommendations  of  the  Metropolitan  Park  Commission,  a  new 
body,  created  in  1892  to  supplement  the  work  of  Boston,  and 
to  provide  open  spaces  for  the  larger  Boston,  in  favoring  the 
appropriation  of  the  shores  of  the  river  to  jjark  uses.  The 
new  bridge,  fittingly  named  from  the  college  to  which  its  con- 
necting avenue  leads,  was  finished  in  1890,  but,  awaiting  the 
settlement  of  a  question  of  crossing  the  location  of  the  Grand 
Junction  Railroad,  was  not  opened  to  public  use  until  1891. 
After  the  opening  of  the  bridge  and  its  avenue,  renewed  prog- 
ress was  made  under  this  encouragement,*  with  the  extension 
of  their  sea-wall  and  the  covering  of  their  submerged  lands  by 
the  Embankment  Company.  It  remained  for  Cambridge  to 
take  the  final  step  in  the  work  of  furthering  the  consecration 
of  the  Charles  to  adornment  and  recreation.  A  strong  popular 
agitation  of  the  question  of  public  parks  (1892)  led  to  the  cre- 
ation of  a  municipal  park  commission,  with  proper  powers. 
A  fortunate  selection  of  three  citizens  uniting  strong  practical 
wisdom  with  excellent  taste  and  judgment,  to  carry  out  the 
wishes  of  the  people,  was  made.  The  work  of  this  commission 
was  as  speedy  as  it  was  effective.  Within  a  few  months  after 
its  appointment,  besides  inland  reservations,  it  had  set  apart 
forever  to  the  use  of  the  people  a  ribbon  of  shore  lands  in  East 
Cambridge,  between  Craigie  and  West  Boston  bridges,  fourteen 
hundred  and  sixty  feet  in  length,  and  the  entire  Cambridge 
bank  of  the  Charles  from  the  westerly  terminal  of  the  espla- 
nade under  construction  by  the  Embankment  Company  almost 
to  the  Watertown  line,  a  distance  of  over  three  miles. 

The  waste  areas  to  the  north  of  Main  Street  have  also  been 
slowly  undergoing  changes  for  the  better.  Of  the  intricate 
system  of  canals  devised  for  the  creation  of  the  port  that  was  to 
rival  Boston,  one  after  the  other  succumbed  to  the  encroach- 
ment of  trade.  To-day,  only  a  suggestion  of  the  mighty  enter- 
prise of  the  canal-builders  is  left  in  the  Broad  Canal,  which  will 
itself  disappear  in  turn.  West  of  the  location  of  the  railroad, 
numerous  factories  of  importance,  and,  lately,  of  still  larger 


THE  BINNEY  FIELDS.  109 

consequence,  have  been  erected.  A  large  fraction  of  the  dis- 
trict known  as  the  Binney  fields  obstinately  resisted  settlement, 
but  now  for  the  most  part  has  become  happily  embraced  in  the 
park  areas  of  the  city.  South  of  the  railroad,  the  recovery  of 
the  lowlands,  although  almost  encompassing  the  most  thickly 
habited  section  of  Cambridge,  has  been  till  recently  slow  in  its 
progress.  Repeated  effort  through  corporate  union  of  landed 
interests  proved  unavailing  to  effect  their  transformation. 

The  incorporation  of  the  city  and  the  projection  of  the  rail- 
road, promising  a  new  era  of  prosperity  and  growth,  encouraged 
certain  merchants,  in  1847,  to  undertake  the  improvement  of  the 
overflowed  lands  in  this  quarter.  Corporate  powers  were  se- 
cured by  them  from  the  General  Court,  with  authority  to  buy 
and  develop  lands  between  the  highlands  of  East  Cambridge  and 
the  River  Charles  and  north  of  West  Boston  Bridge ;  and  the 
Cambridge  Wharf  Company  was  organized.  Beyond  the  pur- 
chase of  a  tract  along  the  river  front  and  the  conception  of  a 
plan  of  improvement,  this  company  did  little,  and  finally  re- 
leased its  entire  holdings  to  an  individual  purchaser  in  1890. 
A  second  corporation  was  created  by  the  legislature  in  1861, 
under  the  name  of  the  East  Cambridge  Land  Company,  to 
attempt  the  work  of  reclamation  in  the  territory  covered  by  its 
predecessor.  A  large  district  covering  some  seventy-five  acres, 
lying  between  Portland  Street  and  Third  (formerly  Court)  Street 
and  the  Broad  Canal  came  into  the  possession  of  this  company. 
On  these  lands  a  number  of  manufacturing  structures  and  work- 
shops, some  of  notable  character,  have  been  erected ;  but  after 
thirty-five  years  of  effort,  and  despite  the  strong  and  steady 
growth  of  the  old  districts  of  the  city  during  that  period,  quite 
one  third  of  the  available  holdings  of  this  company  still  remain 
to  be  built  upon.  In  1874,  a  third  charter  was  granted  by  the 
legislature  to  other  citizens  desirous  of  solving  the  utilitarian 
problems  in  this  section.  The  Cambridge  Improvement  Com- 
pany was  thus  formed,  and  became  possessed  of  between  fifty 
and  sixty  acres  of  lowlands,  mostly  flats,  between  Third  Street 
and  the  river.  The  interposition  of  Broad  Canal  between  these 
lands  and  Main  Street,  always  a  seemingly  insurmountable 
obstacle  to  the  use  of  these  lands,  effectually  closed  them  from 
advantageous  connection  with  Boston.  With  the  aid  of  the 
authorities  of  the  municipality,  this  barrier  was,  however,  about 
to  be  removed,  when  the  disastrous  financial  panic  following  the 


110  THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL.  ^ 

initiation  of  this  enterprise,  which  paralyzed  all  energies,  effec- 
tually put  an  end  to  the  efforts  of  this  company.  A  short  sec- 
tion of  stone  wall  on  the  river  front,  ragged  from  neglect,  re- 
mained as  a  forlorn  monument  of  the  fallen  fortunes  of  this 
enterprise  until  1889,  when  a  citizen  of  Boston,  convinced  of 
the  possibilities  of  these  barren  lands,  situated  as  they  were  in 
the  heart  of  a  great  community,  and  within  a  trifling  distance 
of  the  commercial  centres  of  his  city,  acquired  nearly  fifty  acres 
of  this  territory,  including  the  entire  water  front,  half  a  mile 
in  length,  lying  between  the  canal  and  either  bridge. 

The  effort  to  recover  this  land  was  at  once  renewed,  and  this 
time  with  effect.  First  Street  was  at  once  filled,  from  its  ter- 
minus at  Binney  Street  to  the  line  of  Broad  Canal,  a  thousand 
feet  in  length,  and  the  sea-wall  along  the  river  extended  east- 
erly. By  a  wise  cooperation  of  the  city  authorities  and  the 
courageous  investor,  the  Broad  Canal  was  at  length  bridged, 
and  entrance  gained  to  Main  Street  at  its  junction  with  West 
Boston  bridge.  Since  that  time,  the  work  of  recovering  the 
waste  lands  of  this  part  of  Cambridge  has  been  rapid.  Already 
about  fifteen  acres  of  original  flat-lauds  have  been  filled.  First 
Street  has  been  recognized  by  the  city  authorities  as  a  thor- 
oughfare of  such  importance  as  to  warrant  a  pavement  of 
granite  blocks.  Its  sidewalks,  ten  feet  in  width,  will  be  as- 
phalted. On  this  street  stands,  finished  but  yesterday,  one  of 
the  noblest  monuments  of  industry  yet  erected  in  Cambridge,  a 
great  structure,  whose  purposes  are  proclaimed  by  Athena,  god- 
dess of  letters,  whose  heroic  effigy  proudly  crowns  its  pediment. 

Of  the  ancient  marshes  and  flats  in  this  quarter  of  the  city, 
between  the  highlands  and  the  river's  line,  over  one  hundred 
acres  still  await  reclamation.  It  is  to  this  district  that  Cam- 
bridge must  largely  look  in  the  future  for  its  prosperity.  For 
here,  under  wise  encouragement,  should  grow  up  a  great  manu- 
facturing quarter  second  to  none  other  in  or  near  the  capital 
city.  All  elements  necessary  for  the  creation  of  a  commercial 
district  of  this  character  seem  to  be  here  in  happy  conspiracy. 
It  is  almost  at  the  gates  of  Boston.  First  Street  is  only  a  mile 
distant  from  the  City  Hall  of  Boston,  and,  accordingly,  nearer 
to  that  accepted  centre  than  the  Hotel  Vendome,  than  the  new 
Union  station  now  proposed  on  the  Back  Bay,  than  Dover 
Street,  than  all  South  Boston,  except  a  small  portion  of  the 
newly  made  lands,  than  aU  East  Boston,  than  all  Charlestown 


A  RIVER  PARK.  Ill 

but  a  small  fraction.  Barges  of  the  largest  size  may  be  moored 
at  its  wharves,  and,  by  spur  from  the  main  line  of  steel  track, 
the  products  of  its  factories  may  find  direct  land  transportation 
over  the  continent.  Two  main  thoroughfares  lead  from  this 
quarter  straight  to  the  heart  of  the  great  city  over  the  narrow 
waters  in  one  direction,  and  out  into  the  cities  and  towns  be- 
yond in  the  other.  Here  wide  streets  will  afford  ample  room 
for  traffic,  and  preserve  the  play  of  sunshine  and  the  freedom 
of  air.  A  dense  population  is  at  hand  to  supply  the  artisans 
of  the  coming  industries.  A  river  park  on  the  one  side  and 
a  land  park  on  the  other  will  furnish  the  toilers  and  their  chil- 
dren with  refreshment  and  recreation.  The  policy  of  the  city 
in  encouraging  the  private  reclamation  of  its  lowlands,  now  long 
since  established,  will  favor  the  proper  improvement  of  this 
quarter  with  increased  generosity  as  its  possibilities  become 
more  fully  appreciated.  For  with  its  appropriation  by  the  great 
hives  of  industry  will  come  an  increased  prosperity  to  the  com- 
munity. As  a  purely  residential  city,  Cambridge  cannot  hope 
to  be  more  than  an  annex  to  Boston.  The  presence  within  her 
borders  of  large  commercial  interests  will  give  her  the  impor- 
tance of  a  self-sufficing  entity,  and  a  hardy  independence  of 
her  neighbors,  great  or  small.  To  the  spread  of  the  quarters 
of  business  more  than  to  those  of  habitation  will  be  due  that 
happy  increase  of  financial  resource  which  is  so  necessary  for 
the  pressing  wants  of  a  growing  community.  Long  before 
Cambridge  celebrates  a  centennial  anniversary  of  urban  exist- 
ence, these  lands,  every  inch  reclaimed  from  the  deep,  and  filled 
with  workshops  and  warehouses,  will  be  pointed  out  with  pride 
as  a  distinctive  quarter  of  the  city,  its  past  nakedness  and  deso- 
lation biu'ied  and  forgotten. 

Thus,  in  this  memorial  year,  the  results  of  the  work  of  the 
last  few  years  in  solving  the  grave  problems  affecting  the  Cam- 
bridge littoral  sum  up  largely.  It  is  only  thirteen  years  since 
the  first  stone  of  a  sea-wall  facing  the  bay  of  the  Charles  as  the 
outwork  of  a  public  promenade  was  laid  in  the  solid  gravel  of 
its  bed.  To-day,  the  wall  stretches  out  far  from  either  side  of 
the  Harvard  bridge,  in  front  of  it  an  always  ojjen  basin,  and 
behind  it  the  promised  esplanade,  two  hundred  feet  wide,  and 
thirty-five  hundred  feet  in  length,  ready  for  the  decoration  of 
trees  and  plants  to  justify  its  exceeding  value  to  the  Cambridge 
of  the  future  and  its  further  extension  along  the  river  banks. 


112  THE  CAMBRIDGE  LITTORAL. 

To-day,  the  wall  of  the  Charlesbank  of  East  Cambridge  is  built, 
and  a  beautiful  section  of  river  park  will  at  no  distant  time  be 
there  open  to  the  people.  To-day,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
hundred  feet,  the  entire  littoral  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people. 
The  progressive  improvement  of  the  river's  banks  under  public 
control  will  force  the  wholesome  recovery  of  all  the  abutting 
lowlands  at  private  initiative.  In  the  commercial  district  to  the 
north  of  Main  Street  the  Binney  marshes  have  given  way  to  a 
health-giving  common,  and  the  obnoxious  flats  are  fast  disap- 
pearing. Since  1892,  the  bridge  at  First  Street  has  been  built, 
and  fifteen  acres  of  the  adjacent  lands  have  already  been  re- 
claimed for  settlement ;  it  will  be  but  a  short  time  before  the 
tide  is  finally  driven  from  this  entire  quarter.  To  the  south 
of  Main  Street,  a  great  section  of  the  ancient  shallows,  one 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  in  extent,  has  given  place  to  clean 
uplands,  inviting  the  builders  of  houses.  Beyond,  to  the  west 
of  the  railroad,  a  million  feet  of  the  marshes  have  been  raised, 
and  a  site  for  a  great  athletic  campus  is  made.  If  all  but  a 
tithe  of  this  great  work  has  been  done  during  the  past  five  or 
six  years,  what  may  not  be  accomplished  in  its  active  prose- 
cution within  the  next  decade?  There  can  be  now  no  retro- 
grade action  in  the  treatment  of  the  shores  of  the  beautiful 
river.  The  transformation  of  the  desolation  that  threatened 
the  well-being  of  the  people,  that  mortally  offended  the  sense  of 
the  beautiful,  that  foreboded,  a  staggering  burden  of  public 
debt,  has  so  far  progressed  that  the  quick  consummation  of  the 
hopes  of  the  past  may  be  confidently  anticipated.  Nor  will 
Cambridge  be  long  alone  in  the  labor.  Her  example  must 
stimulate  the  great  sister  city  to  happy  imitation  on  the  south 
shore  of  the  bay,  and  hasten  the  park  scheme,  covering  the 
upper  reaches  of  the  Charles,  to  completion.  When  the  work  is 
finally  completed  of  devoting  this  river  and  its  banks  far  up 
the  stream  to  the  pleasures  of  the  people,  and  all  the  menacing 
lowlands  are  things  of  an  unhappy  past,  a  great  pride  will  fill 
the  hearts  of  the  people  in  the  possession  of  so  beautiful  a  spot, 
and  the  stranger  will  come  from  afar  to  admire.  And  Blaxton, 
could  he  climb  again  the  high  peak  of  his  hermitage,  and 
gaze  on  the  splendid  panorama  about  him,  would  indeed  marvel 
at  the  mighty  woi-ks  of  those  who  have  come  after  him. 


CAMBRIDGE  WATER-WORKS. 

By  HON.  CHESTER  W.  KINGSLEY. 

I  PROPOSE  to  give  a  history  of  the  beginning  and  progress 
of  the  chartered  water-works  in  Cambridge.  The  facts,  new  to 
many,  and  perhaps  not  altogether  uninteresting  on  an  occasion 
like  this,  will  thus  be  recorded  for  future  reference. 

The  first  charter  was  granted  to  the  Cambridgeport  Aque- 
duct Company  in  April,  1837,  to  bring  the  water  from  a  spring 
or  springs  on  what  is  now  Spring  Hill  in  Somerville.  The 
water  was  brought  in  wooden  logs,  and  a  limited  amount  was 
supplied  in  the  lower  Port  for  many  years. 

In  1852,  a  charter  was  granted  the  Cambridge  Water- Works, 
and  in  1856,  the  corporation  was  authorized  to  take  the  water  of 
Fresh  Pond.     Here  our  present  water-works  began. 

In  1861,  the  Cambridge  Water- Works  was  empowered  to  buy 
out  the  Aqueduct  Company,  which  it  did,  and  the  city  of 
Cambridge  in  April,  1865,  was  permittted  to  buy  and  acquire 
the  rights  of  both  of  these  companies,  which  was  done  by  vote 
of  the  city,  and  thus  all  the  water-works  in  Cambridge  became 
public  property. 

In  1875,  Cambridge  was  authorized  to  take  the  waters  of  Spy 
and  Little  Ponds,  and  Wellington  Brook.  Subsequently,  all  of 
these  sources  of  supply  were  connected.  Spy  Pond  afterwards 
was,  however,  condemned  as  a  source  of  supply  for  domestic  use, 
and  no  water  was  drawn  from  it  for  the  use  of  Cambridge, 
but  the  waters  of  Wellington  Brook  and  Little  Pond  helped 
furnish  a  supply  for  several  years  by  being  brought  into  Fresh 
Pond.  As  the  city  grew  the  demand  for  water  increased,  until 
these  sources  were  entirely  inadequate,  and  other  water  was 
looked  for. 

May  21,  1884,  the  additional  privilege  was  given  to  Cam- 
bridge to  "  take  the  waters  of  Stony  Brook  and  its  tributaries 
for  the  purpose  of  extinguishing  fires,  and  for  domestic  and 


114  CAMBRIDGE   WATER-WORKS. 

other  purposes,"  and  with  the  added  right  to  "  take  land  for 
building  dams,  creating  storage  basins,  and  doing  everything 
else  necessary  to  utilize  the  water  thus  given  them."  The  act 
was  accepted  by  the  city  council,  the  waters  were  formally  taken, 
and  have  since  been  paid  for  and  brought  into  Fresh  Pond. 

Stony  Brook  and  its  tributaries  have  twenty-two  square  miles 
of  watershed,  and  in  1893,  the  driest  of  the  last  eight  years, 
they  furnished  by  measurement  more  than  eighteen  million 
gallons,  daily  average,  for  the  whole  year.  This  was  three  times 
as  much  as  we  used.  It  will  be  seen  by  this  that  all  that  we 
need  to  do,  to  secure  water  enough  for  our  city  for  many  years, 
is  to  create  storage  basins  to  retain  the  water  during  the  spring 
freshets,  and  hold  it  until  the  dry  season  comes.  The  Water 
Board  is  now  making  a  storage  basin  on  Hobbs  Brook,  a  branch 
of  Stony  Brook,  which  will  store  two  thousand  million  gallons 
of  water.  This,  with  Stony  Brook,  will  furnish  the  city  with  an 
abundant  supply  for  many  years  to  come.  Another  large  storage 
basin  can  be  made  at  the  head-waters  of  Stony  Brook,  when 
needed,  including  Beaver  Pond,  a  location  for  a  dam  having 
been  already  secured  and  surveys  made  for  another  storage 
basin,  plans  of  which  are  on  file  in  the  city  engineer's  office. 
The  Water  Board  is  also  now  building  a  high  service  distrib- 
uting reservoir  at  Payson  Park,  with  a  capacity  of  forty  million 
gallons,  which  will  greatly  increase  the  security  against  fires, 
and  furnish  head  for  buildings  on  the  highest  lands  in  Cam- 
bridge. 

Before  the  city  bought  out  the  private  companies,  there  was 
a  difference  of  opinion  among  some  of  our  best  citizens  as  to 
whether  it  was  best  to  buy,  or  not,  some  thinking  that  a  depart- 
ment would  be  created  in  which  jobs  would  be  let  out  detrimen- 
tal to  the  city,  an  enterprise  which  private  effort  had  failed  to 
make  profitable,  and  that  it  would  be  likely  to  become  a  financial 
burden,  if  the  city  took  it.  Others  thought  differently,  and 
could  see  no  good  reason  why  the  water-works  should  not  be 
managed  on  business  principles  and  take  care  of  themselves. 

The  city  voted  to  buy  out  the  private  companies,  and  paid 
$291,400  (for  which  amount  bonds  were  issued),  at  the  same 
time  agreeing  that  all  extensions  of  the  water-works  should  be 
provided  for  by  bonds  and  surplus  water  rates,  after  paying 
current  expenses.  Interest  on  bonds,  and  what  the  law  required 
for  the  sinking  fund,  was  to  be  added  to  the  sinking  fund.     In 


Ca.MHK1L>UE    PUMI'IXO    EX(ilNE    No.    7. 


THE  FINANCIAL  SHOWING.  115 

order  to  determine  which  class  of  our  citizens  was  right  in  their 
views  about  buying  the  water-works,  it  was  provided  by  ordi- 
nance that  the  accounts  of  the  water-works  should  be  kept 
separate  from  the  other  departments  of  the  city.  At  first  an 
allowance  was  made  to  the  water-works  for  water  furnished  the 
fire  department,  for  watering  streets,  for  all  public  buildings, 
and  water  fountains  for  horses,  etc. ;  but  several  years  since, 
the  ordinance  on  these  matters  was  repealed.  Since  that  time 
nothing  has  been  allowed  the  water-works  for  any  used  in  the 
city  for  fire  and  other  public  purposes,  as  is  the  custom  abuost 
everywhere  else. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  financial  standing  after  thirty  and  one 
half  years'  experience  up  to  November  30,  1895. 

Amount  of  bonds  issued  for  original  purchase $291,400.00 

Bonds  issued  since  for  extension  account 3,543,500.00 

Making  the  total  amount  of  bonds  issued $3,834,900.00 

Amount  of  bonds  paid  from  sinking  fund  .       $1,619,400.00 
Value   of   sinking  fund    November   30, 

1893,  as  per  the  trustee  account  ....       546,049.24     $2,165,449.24 

Leaving  bonds  yet  outstanding  to  be  provided  for  by 
the  sinking  fimd  and  representing  the  net  cost  of 
the  water-works,  November  30,  1895 $1,669,450.76 

The  sinking  fund  will  be  ample  to  provide  for  all  outstanding 
bonds  as  fast  as  they  fall  due. 

We  feel  somewhat  proud  of  our  financial  showing,  especially 
when  we  know  that  our  people  have  been  supplied  at  lower  rates 
than  others,  though  all  the  water  is  pumped,  and  all  departments 
of  the  city  have  been  furnished  with  water  free  for  many  years. 
Nothing  is  put  into  the  tax  levy  from  year  to  year  to  swell  the 
income,  or  to  make  up  deficiencies  in  the  water  department,  as 
is  done  in  some  other  places. 

In  connection  with  the  financial  history  of  the  water-works 
there  are  some  other  points  that  should  be  mentioned,  in  which 
it  has  been  a  help  to  the  tax-payers  in  other  city  departments. 

1.  In  1876,  there  were  hard  times,  and  many  were  out  of 
work  in  the  city,  their  families  being  in  want.  The  city  council 
passed  an  order  appropriating  $26,000  for  relief,  and  directed 
the  Wat«r  Board  to  spend  it  as  best  they  could,  paying  the  men 
one  dollar  per  day,  and  settling  every  night.     The  Board  was 


116  CAMBRIDGE   WATER-WORKS. 

obliged  to  spend  $28,000  more  to  create  the  work  called  for, 
and  the  work  thus  done  proved  of  little  or  no  value  to  the  water- 
works, but  $54,000  was  contributed  to  help  the  poor  of  the  city. 
Upon  this  sum  the  water-works  has  been  paying  interest  for 
the  past  eighteen  years,  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum. 

2.  Concord  Avenue  had  been  in  a  most  deplorable  condition 
for  several  years.  The  city  had  bought  thirteen  and  one  half 
acres  of  land  in  Belmont  near  Fresh  Pond,  that  it  was  desirable 
to  annex  to  Cambridge.  Huron  Street  (now  Huron  Avenue) 
had  been  laid  out  seventy  feet  wide  from  Concord  Avenue  to 
the  Watertown  Branch  of  the  Fitchburg  Railroad.  It  was  de- 
sirable that  this  shoidd  be  continued  to  Cushing  Street,  which 
would  give  an  avenue  surrounding  all  the  land  of  the  city 
bordering  on  Fresh  Pond,  which  was  fast  assuming  the  appear- 
ance of  a  fine  water  park.  An  act  was  secured  from  the  legis- 
lature giving  the  city  the  right  "  to  lay  out,  construct,  and  main- 
tain Cushing,  Grove,  Washington,  and  Adams  streets,  and 
Concord  Avenue,  from  Adams  Street  to  Fresh  Pond  Avenue, 
and  for  laying  out,  grading,  embellishing,  and  maintaining  the 
grounds  around  Fresh  Pond,  and  pay  for  the  same  out  of  the 
surplus  water  rates,  after  paying  all  interest  on  bonds,  current 
expenses,  and  providing  for  the  sinking  fund,  three  per  cent,  as 
required  by  law." 

3.  Under  this  authority  the  Street  Department  put  Concord 
Turnpike  in  good  repair  in  1891,  at  an  expense  of  $12,400.  In 
1892,  the  Street  Department  widened  Adams,  Washington, 
Grove,  and  Cushing  streets,  and  put  them  in  good  order,  at  an 
expense  of  $10,000.  In  1893,  two  iron  bridges  were  built  on 
Huron  Street  extension,  and  the  work  of  gTading  and  making 
the  street  from  the  railroad  to  Cushing  Street  has  been  done,  or 
is  nearly  completed,  by  the  Street  Department,  at  an  expense  of 
$27,022.  Besides  this,  the  Street  Department  has  taken  many 
thousand  loads  of  gravel  from  land  bought  by  the  Water  Board, 
paid  for  in  the  water  bonds,  upon  the  cost  of  which  we  are  still 
paying  the  interest,  but  for  which  no  allowance  has  been  made 
to  the  Water  Department. 

4.  The  making  of  Lake  View  Avenue  from  Concord  Ave- 
nue, Fresh  Pond  Avenue,  to  the  railroad  station  and  pumping 
engine  house,  and  filling  and  grading  Worthington  Street  at 
an  expense  of  about  $50,000,  was  also  paid  for  by  the  Water 
Department. 


FRESH  POND  PARK.  117 

Now  let  us  summarize  these  things,  say :  — 

Amount  expended  to  help  the  city  poor $54,000.00 

Amount  expended  in  constructing  Lake  View  Avenue  with 

sewer  in  same,  etc 47,985.32 

Amount  expended  in  repairing  Concord  Avenue 12,400.00 

Amount  expended  in  widening  Adams,  Grove,  and  Gushing 

streets 10,000.00 

Amount  expended  on  Gushing,  Huron  Street,  and  two  bridges  27,022,00 

Making  the  total  amount  of $151,407.32 

representing  some  of  the  direct  benefits  rendered  the  city  and  paid 
for  by  the  water-works  in  money  procured  by  sale  of  water  bonds, 
not  counting  the  gravel  taken.  These  statements  are  made  to 
show  what  has  been,  in  brief,  the  history,  and  to  show  the  value 
of  the  water-works  to  the  city  of  Cambridge,  besides  furnishing 
water  for  the  citizens.  To  the  credit  of  the  city  council  it  should 
be  said  that  it  has  uniformly  granted  the  needed  appropria- 
tions asked  for  by  the  Water  Board,  and  that  without  its  hearty 
cooperation  nothing  could  have  been  done,  for  the  Water  Board 
could  spend  no  money  until  it  had  obtained  authority  from  the 
city  council. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  set  forth  a  few  of  the  salient  points 
in  the  history  of  our  water-works.  I  have  never  before  had  a 
chance  to  inform  so  many  on  this  subject,  and  never  expect 
another  such  opportunity. 

Fresh  Pond  was  ceded  to  the  city  of  Cambridge  by  the 
Commonwealth  for  a  reservoir  in  1888,  with  power  to  take  all 
the  land  and  buildings  around  the  pond  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
serving the  purity  of  the  water.  Under  this  act  the  city  has 
taken  about  170  acres,  and  removed  all  buildings  therefrom. 
The  pond  contains  160  acres,  and  a  fine  driveway  has  been  con- 
structed all  around  its  borders,  nearly  three  miles  long.  With 
the  water  area  and  land  taken,  this  makes  a  fine  water  park  of  330 
acres.  The  surroundings  of  the  park  are  being  graded  and  laid 
out  in  an  artistic  way,  beautifying  the  whole  region  and  making 
it  one  of  the  most  attractive  places  in  the  suburbs  of  Boston. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  in  an  abundant  supply  of  excellent 
water,  not  surpassed  by  that  of  any  to\vn  or  city  in  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  equaled  by  few,  Cambridge  presents  one  of 
the  strongest  inducements,  with  her  "  No  License  "  record,  for 
any  who  may  be  looking  for  a  home  where  good  water  and  good 


118  CAMBRIDGE   WATER-WORKS. 

morals  prevail,  while  at  the  same  time  manufacturers  will  find 
it  for  their  interest  to  locate  here  where  the  land  is  reasonable, 
and  moderate  in  price,  the  water  rates  low,  and  the  facilities  for 
doing  business  excellent. 

The  water- works  have,  since  the  city  purchased  them,  been 
managed  by  a  Water  Board,  composed  at  first  of  the  mayor 
(who  then  presided  over  the  board  of  aldermen),  and  presi- 
dent of  the  common  council  ex  officio,  and  five  citizens,  chosen 
one  from  each  ward.  Since  the  revised  charter  was  adopted, 
the  Water  Board  consists  of  the  five  citizens  only,  who  have 
always  served  the  city  with  no  compensation,  except  the  con- 
sciousness of  serving  the  public  in  one  of  its  most  important 
departments. 

Editor's  Note.  —  The  above  account  of  the  water  system  of  Cambridge 
cannot  be  considered  complete  without  the  additional  statement  that  Mr. 
Kingsley  was  himself  a  member  of  the  Water  Board  from  1865  to  1894, 
and  that  for  fourteen  years  of  that  time  he  served  as  its  president. 


CAMBRIDGE  PARKS. 

By  henry  D.  YERXA, 

pbesident  of  the  park  commission. 

This  year  we  celebrate  the  anniversary  of  the  incorporation 
of  Cambridge  as  a  city ;  we  consider  what  Cambridge  is,  what 
Cambridge  shall  be.  In  the  strength  of  the  intellectual  life  of 
the  seat  of  Harvard  University  we  have  great  faith.  We  be- 
lieve, too,  that  the  political  life  of  our  city  stands  as  an  example 
of  the  success  of  a  steady  struggle  for  good  government.  If 
such  be  the  truth,  is  it  not  worth  our  while  to  dwell  for  a  time 
upon  the  outward  form  of  our  c*ity,  to  learn  what  can  be  done 
to  make  Cambridge  a  fitting  home  for  the  life  toward  which 
many  men  look  as  toward  that  which  is  strong  and  good  in  our 
civilization  ? 

Only  after  a  city  reaches  that  stage  of  existence  when  some 
parts  at  least  have  become  crowded,  does  the  realization  of 
the  need  for  open  spaces  make  itself  convincingly  apparent. 
Indeed,  it  is  only  in  the  great  European  cities  that  we  find  the 
ideal  development  of  lands  given  over  to  the  use  of  the  people, 
—  in  such  vast  centres  as  Paris,  Berlin,  Hamburg,  and  Lon- 
don. Elizur  Wright  has  even  said,  in  a  description  of  London's 
magnificent  parks,  "London  would  go  crazy  without  them." 
That  Cambridge  itself  is  becoming  crowded  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  an  entire  ward  might  be  laid  out  with  a  population  of 
one  hundred  people  to  the  acre,  while  smaller  districts  are  still 
more  densely  populated.  Such  being  the  condition,  we  cannot 
but  ask  ourselves  what  efforts  we  have  made  to  give  to  every 
man,  especially  to  those  who  are  living  under  the  least  favor- 
able circumstances,  opportunity  to  breathe  pure  air  in  the  midst 
of  natural  beauty,  a  privilege  which  should  become  the  birth- 
right of  every  dweller  in  an  American  city. 

It  was  not  until  1892  that  any  special  exertion  was  made  to 
enlarge  the  public  grounds.     In  that  year,  a  committee  of  five 


120  CAMBRIDGE  PARKS. 

was  appointed  by  the  late  Hon.  Alpheus  B.  Alger,  then  mayor, 
to  consider  the  subject  of  parks.  To  General  Hincks,  the 
chairman,  a  strong  man,  eager  always  for  the  welfare  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  especially  earnest  in  his  desire  to  take  advantage 
of  the  possibilities  of  the  city  in  this  respect,  thankfulness  for 
our  awakening  to  the  needs  of  Cambridge  along  present  park 
lines  is  largely  due.  In  November  of  1892,  the  report  of  the 
committee  was  rendered,  and  it  showed  how  easily  we  had  let 
the  years  slip  by,  and  with  how  little  we  had  been  satisfied.  In 
Ward  One,  we  had  Cambridge  Common,  Winthrop  Square, 
Arsenal  Square  ;  in  Ward  Two,  Broadway  Common  ;  in  Ward 
Three,  no  open  spaces ;  in  Ward  Four,  Washington  Square, 
Hastings  Square,  and  River  Street  Square ;  in  Ward  Five,  again, 
there  was  no  open  space.  Fresh  Pond  Park,  begun  by  the  wise 
foresight  of  Chester  W.  Kingsley  and  his  fellow-workers  on 
the  Water  Board,  had  already  been  somewhat  developed,  and 
the  esplanade  of  the  Charles  River  Embankment  Company, 
near  Harvard  Bridge,  was  in  process  of  construction. 

The  inadequacy  of  these  grounds  was  most  evident.  East 
Cambridge,  for  instance,  with  its  fifty-five  peoj^le  to  each  in- 
habited acre,  had  not  a  single  breathing-space.  Consequently, 
so  strongly  was  the  need  of  persistent  and  lasting  effort  for  the 
development  of  the  park  system  felt  by  the  city  government, 
urged  by  Mayor  Bancroft  in  his  inaugural  address,  that  in 
August  of  the  following  year,  1893,  Rev.  John  O'Brien,  George 
Howland  Cox,  and  Henry  D.  Yerxa  were  appointed  park  com- 
missioners, and  since  that  time  they  have  labored  diligently  to 
make  Cambridge  what  all  wish  the  city  to  be.  Of  course,  the 
commission  has  been  obliged  to  struggle  with  the  difficulties  of 
a  city  well  on  the  road  to  a  permanent  form,  not  with  the  easier 
problem  of  laying  out  grounds  with  freedom  of  choice,  as  had 
been,  of  late,  possible  in  some  of  our  Western  towns,  organized 
by  men  from  older  cities,  —  men  wise  enough  to  see  what  the 
future  bore  in  her  hands.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  difficulty, 
all  have  been  ready  to  employ  their  wisest  thought  in  building 
the  earthworks  of  Cambridge.  They  have  realized  the  perma- 
nency of  the  result  of  such  endeavors  ;  that  parks  will  not  wear 
out,  that  though  bridges,  public  buildings,  water-works,  sewers, 
and  pavements  must  be  replaced,  "  earth  work,"  as  President 
Eliot  has  well  said,  "  is  the  most  permanent  of  all  tlie  works  of 
men."     They  have  known  what  breathing-space  means  to  the 


A  SPECIMEN.  121 

people,  to  hard-working  men,  to  weary  mothers,  to  little  chil- 
dren. They  have  not  forgotten  what  Rev.  D.  N.  Beach,  whose 
loss  as  a  citizen  of  Cambridge  we  so  deeply  regret,  would  call 
the  transcendental  aspects  of  the  park  system.  Neither  have 
they  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  parks  are  a  good  municipal 
investment  for  Cambridge.  They  have  remembered  that  Balti- 
more, that  Buffalo,  that  Boston,  have  all  been  able  to  vshow  that 
their  great  parks,  through  the  increased  valuation  of  the  sur- 
rounding territory,  have  already  begun  to  pay  for  themselves. 
Though  the  sum  to  be  expended  by  Cambridge  during  the  next 
fifteen  years  will  probably  be  about  f  2,000,000,  they  feel  sure 
that,  in  time,  through  financial  returns  alone,  the  city  will  be 
the  gainer  from  this  improvement. 

From  the  report  of  1892  it  was  easy  to  see  where  work  was 
most  urgently  needed.  That  our  present  public  grounds, 
planned  in  days  when  few  in  this  country  realized  as  many  do 
to-day  what  parks  may  be,  needed  much  improvement  was  per- 
fectly plain  to  all,  and  instead  of  a  barren  space  of  ground, 
hardly  more  than  a  trodden  desert,  ornamented  with  a  flagpole 
and  a  few  trees  planted  with  little  consideration  of  the  whole 
effect,  we  are  to  have,  under  the  wise  direction  of  the  noted 
landscape  architects,  Olmsted,  Olmsted  &  Eliot,  plots  which 
shall  be,  for  all,  true  retreats  from  the  busy  hum  of  city  life. 
On  Broadway  Common  this  process  of  change  may  first  be 
watched. 

Of  this  proposed  improvement  Olmsted,  Olmsted  &  Eliot 
say :  "  This  small  public  ground  contains  two  and  six  tenths 
acres.  At  the  present  time  it  is  so  cut  up  by  cross-paths  that 
its  appearance  is  ruined.  Neither  is  its  present  arrangement 
well  adapted  to  serve  the  comfort  of  the  women,  children,  and 
babies  who  frequent  the  place  in  summer."  The  plan  provides 
convenient  diagonal  paths,  while  it  preserves  a  considerable 
breadth  of  central  lawn.  For  the  children  it  suggests  a  gravel 
playing-space  150  feet  long,  placed  near  the  Broadway  bound- 
ary, so  that  a  sunny  exposure  may  be  had.  Seats  placed  here 
under  a  vineclad  arbor  will  command  the  playground  and  the 
lawn,  while  the  arbor  and  a  dense  shrubbery  behind  it  will 
afford  some  shelter  from  north  winds. 

The  want  for  additional  public  grounds  was  seen  to  be  most 
urgent  in  "Ward  Two,  Ward  Three,  and  also  in  Ward  Five,  in 
which,  though  the  population  is  scattered  as  a  whole,  there  is  a 
crowded  locality. 


122  CAMBRIDGE  PARKS. 

After  much  deliberation,  for  the  relief  of  East  Cambridge  it 
was  decided  to  centre  all  effort  in  the  development  of  the  river 
front,  not  only  because  desirable  land  was  unattainable  else- 
where, but  because  the  opportunity  of  enjoying  the  river  could 
then  be  given  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  most  crowded  portion  of 
our  city,  into  which  residents  are  continually  coming  from  Bos- 
ton, and  where,  without  doubt,  the  history  of  the  larger  city 
in  its  successive  stages  is  to  be  repeated.  This  stretch  of  water 
front  lies  between  the  West  Boston  and  the  Craigie  bridges, 
opposite  the  Charlesbank,  and  occupies  about  one  half  the  dis- 
tance from  bridge  to  bridge.  The  sea-wall  is  already  con- 
structed. Filling  is  in  process.  In  time,  this  East  Cambridge 
embankment  will  be  to  Cambridge  what  the  Charlesbank  is  to 
Boston ;  and  that  the  Charlesbank  is  of  service  to  Boston  no 
one  can  doubt  who  considers  that  the  attendance,  during  last 
summer,  was  somewhat  over  1,000,000  ;  that  on  summer  nights 
it  was  not  unusual  to  find  as  many  as  10,000  people  assembled 
there. 

In  Ward  Two,  a  tract  of  twelve  acres  off  Cambridge  Street, 
to  be  known  as  Cambridge  Field,  has  been  set  aside  as  a  per- 
manent open  space.  Sodding  has  been  done  ;  nearly  all  the 
shrubbery  plantations  are  finished ;  all  the  trees  are  planted. 
Until  the  weather  became  too  cold,  the  portions  of  the  field 
which  are  finished  made  a  popular  resort.  During  the  summer 
evenings  and  Sundays  the  walks  have  been  crowded.  Since 
cold  weather  set  in,  whenever  practicable,  the  field  has  been 
flooded  for  skating.  It  is  in  this  Cambridge  Field  that  our 
citizens  are  for  the  first  time  to  see  a  reservation  of  land  im- 
proved from  its  very  beginning,  as  the  modern  investigation  of 
municipal  needs  has  made  possible,  improved  so  as  best  to  meet 
the  needs  of  those  people  in  the  midst  of  whom  the  land  lies. 
In  no  case  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  desire  for  beauty  neglected, 
but,  in  addition  to  this,  the  lands  have  been  so  laid  out  that 
Cambridge  Field  will  furnish  a  sporting-ground  in  both  winter 
and  summer  for  boys  and  men  ;  an  outdoor  gymnasium  for 
girls;  a  sand-court,  where  small  children  shall  be  allowed  to 
play;  and,  most  important  of  all,  a  central  building.  This 
central  building  or  shelter  is  to  serve  as  a  meeting-place,  and 
a  refuge  in  case  of  sudden  showers.  In  it  will  be  a  check-room 
for  clothing,  bats,  balls,  skates,  and  other  articles.  Light  re- 
freshments, such  as  milk,  beef-tea,  coffee,  and  soda,  will  be 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  RIVER  BANK.  123 

served.  Here  will  be  the  necessary  closets  and  wash-rooms. 
To  this  building,  also,  will  be  joined  a  band  stand.  Thus,  when 
Cambridge  Field  is  completed,  we  shall  have  one  more  illus- 
tration of  what  seems  to  me  a  growing  tendency  in  our  local 
governments,  the  union  of  all  for  the  good  of  all. 

In  Ward  Five,  next  to  the  Wyman  School,  Rindge  Field  has 
been  the  land  selected  for  park  purposes.  Thus  far,  the  field 
has  been  utilized  as  a  playground,  while  a  portion  has  been 
reserved  as  a  nurseiy  for  shrubs  and  trees  sufficient  to  supply 
the  whole  Cambridge  system.  How  Rindge  Field  is  to  be 
developed  is  largely  a  question  of  the  future. 

If  these  were  all  the  lands  Cambridge  saw  fit  to  offer,  Cam- 
bridge would  be  poor  indeed.  We  have,  however,  in  addition, 
the  river  front,  the  development  of  which  is  to  be  the  most 
extensive  work  undertaken,  and  the  work  which  will  bring  most 
glory  to  the  city,  in  the  progress  of  which  we  rejoice,  especially 
in  this  anniversary  year.  From  West  Boston  Bridge  to  the  Cam- 
bridge Hospital,  in  days  to  come,  a  drive  along  the  borders  of 
our  Charles  will  be  possible.  By  the  side  of  the  river,  known 
to  the  Indians  of  long  ago  as  Quineboquin,  the  crooked,  we  shall 
have  over  four  miles  of  parkway.  Only  when  this  undertaking 
is  finished  shall  we  feel  that  we  are  worthy  of  our  heritage,  that 
our  ever-flowing,  ever-abiding  stream  has  received  due  honor. 

Definite  plans  in  regard  to  the  treatment  of  the  whole  river 
bank  have  thus  far  been  impossible.  Two  great  obstacles  have 
stood  in  the  way,  —  lack  of  decision  in  regard  to  the  permanent 
bridges,  and  delay  in  regard  to  the  damming  of  the  Charles, 
about  which  discussion  has  been  warm.  Nevertheless,  Boston 
and  Cambridge  will  soon  decide  on  sites  for  bridges,  and  we 
look  forward  to  the  day  when,  if  opposition,  which  depends 
largely  upon  a  want  of  knowledge  of  facts  and  of  the  benefits 
to  be  conferred,  cannot  be  overcome  to  such  a  degree  that  we 
may  have  a  fresh- water  basin,  we  shall,  at  least,  have  a  dam 
across  the  Charles  similar  to  that  on  the  Thames  above  London, 
where  the  full  incoming  tide  is  allowed  to  sweep  up  the  river, 
but  on  the  ebb  is  kept  back  at  half  tide.  Such  a  treatment 
would  give  us  a  salt-water  basin  of  646  acres  between  Craigie 
Bridge  and  the  Cambridge  Hospital.  The  best  illustration  of 
such  a  basin,  as  has  again  and  again  been  pointed  out,  is  the 
Alster  at  Hamburg.  Picture  to  yourselves  this  sheet  of  water 
between  Cambridge  and  Boston,  never  below  half  tide,  with 


124  CAMBRIDGE  PARKS. 

drives  on  both  banks.  Consider  how  launches  may  run  from 
city  to  city,  how  men  may  start  after  a  long  day's  work  from 
many  points  near  Beacon  Street  and  land  in  almost  any  part  of 
Cambridge,  having  had  this  little  breathing-space  in  the  fresh 
air  and  among  beautiful  surroundings.  By  these  pleasant 
means,  too,  they  may  be  brought  close  to  their  homes ;  for  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  Cambridge  lies  within  a  mile  of  the  river 
bank. 

Two  miles  along  the  Cambridge  side  of  the  basin  from  Har- 
vard Bridge  will  run  a  broad  drive,  with  shady  walks  parallel 
to  the  shore,  protected,  if  the  salt-water  basin  be  determined 
upon,  by  strong  stone  walls,  rather  than  by  the  beaches  and 
shrubs,  which  woidd  be  the  only  possibility  if  the  basin  were,  as 
formerly  proposed,  a  fresh- water  park.  Here  and  there  between 
the  trees  those  who  walk  will  find  resting-places,  and,  every  now 
and  then,  a  landing  which  will  make  short  trips  on  the  water 
tempting.  At  "  Captain's  Island,"  between  Brookline  and 
River  streets,  our  open  lands  will  broaden  out  into  about  thirty- 
eight  acres,  the  largest  park  of  the  system.  This  reservation, 
nearly  three  times  as  large  as  all  the  public  grounds  in  Cam- 
bridge previous  to  1893,  will  be  developed  in  much  the  same 
fashion  as  Cambridge  Field.  The  island,  though  an  island  in 
name  only,  has  the  advantage  of  being  close  to  the  water,  and 
it  thus  furnishes  opportunity  for  boating,  provisions  for  which 
will  be  furnished  by  the  park  department  of  the  city.  From 
River  Street  onwards,  the  drives  and  walks  will  occupy  all  the 
open  space  until  near  Boylston  Street,  a  congested  locality, 
where  the  reservation  will  again  make  it  possible  to  offer  more 
open  spaces,  and  unusual  conditions  in  the  way  of  locations  for 
boathouses,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  water  sports. 

Continuing  along  the  river  bank,  we  shall  soon  catch  glimpses 
of  the  Blue  Hills  of  Milton,  and,  across  the  Soldier's  Field,  of 
the  nearer  Brookline  and  Brighton  hills.  Places  crowded  with 
historic  associations  will  come  to  view,  —  the  Lowell  Willows ; 
across  the  Longfellow  Garden,  Craigie  House ;  then  Elmwood, 
Lowell's  house,  in  the  distance.  Now  we  shall  pass  the  spot 
where  Professor  Horsford  firmly  believed  the  Norsemen  had 
landed.  Soon  we  may  turn  in  one  direction  and  enter  the  Bos- 
ton parks,  or,  in  another,  crossing  Brattle  Street  and  driving 
through  what  is  now  Fresh  Pond  Lane,  reach  our  beautiful 
pond,  set  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  hills,  which  Mr.  Olmsted 


MR.  LOWELUS   WORDS.  125 

has  been  free  to  call  one  of  the  finest  natural  features  about 
Boston,  a  statement  with  which  we,  who  know  the  spot,  fully 
agree.  In  Fresh  Pond  Park,  with  its  broad  outlooks,  improved 
as  it  will  be  by  the  able  efforts  of  the  Water  Board,  we  have  a 
goal  where  our  drive  may  satisfactorily  end.  On  that  day  in 
the  future  toward  which  we  look  when,  in  reality,  we  shall  have 
taken  this  drive,  we  may  perhaps  call  to  mind  Lowell's  words : 
"  I  remembered  people  who  must  call  upon  the  Berkshire  hills 
to  teach  them  what  a  painter  autumn  was,  while  close  at  hand, 
the  Fresh  Pond  meadows  made  all  oriels  cheap  with  hues  that 
showed  as  if  a  sunset  cloud  had  been  wrecked  among  the 
maples." 

When  all  is  done,  the  entrances  to  Cambridge  will,  at  last, 
be  beautiful.  The  city  that  holds  within  itself  treasures  with 
which  few  can  be  compared  will  have  border  lands  worthy  of 
its  riches.  On  that  day,  when  all  our  plans  have  been  made 
good,  we  shall  have  an  outward  form  more  nearly  fitting  the 
best  life  of  Cambridge;  and  those  of  us  who  work  many  a 
day  over  the  problems  which  shall  bring  forth  "  Greater  Cam- 
bridge "  feel  that  the  beauty  of  this  outward  form  will  help 
us  all,  the  least  and  the  greatest,  to  realize  for  Cambridge  the 
best  life  we  can  conceive. 


REAL-ESTATE  INTERESTS   OF   CAMBRIDGE. 

By  LEANDER  M.  HANNUM. 

If  we  recall  the  fact  that  soon  after  the  first  settlement  of 
Cambridge,  in  the  spring  of  1631,  it  embraced  a  territory 
thirty-five  miles  in  length,  including  the  towns  of  Billerica, 
Bedford,  Lexington,  Arlington,  Brighton,  and  Newton,  we  shall 
see  that  our  area  has  greatly  decreased,  as  the  extreme  length 
of  our  present  territory  is  only  four  miles,  and  the  total  area 
about  four  thousand  acres,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  by  legislative 
acts  of  1855  and  1880,  portions  of  Watertown  and  Belmont  were 
granted  to  Cambridge. 

It  exalts  our  estimate  of  the  earlier  commercial  importance 
of  our  city  when  we  read  that  by  an  act  of  Congress  approved 
January  11,  1805,  it  was  enacted  that  Cambridge  should  be  a 
port  of  delivery,  and  subject  to  the  same  regulations  as  other  ports 
of  delivery  in  the  United  States.  The  custom-house  was  never 
built,  yet  under  the  stimulus  given  to  real-estate  interests  by  this 
act,  large  tracts  of  land  on  Broadway  were  sold  with  the  condi- 
tion inserted  in  the  deed  that  no  building  of  other  material  than 
brick  or  stone,  or  less  than  three  stories  in  height,  should  ever 
be  erected  on  them.  Our  present  fire-limit  ordinance,  which  ap- 
plies only  to  our  principal  thoroughfares,  is  scarcely  more  severe. 
The  condition  has,  however,  been  constantly  violated,  and  but 
few  buildings  of  the  character  named  are  found  on  the  street 
after  a  period  of  nearly  a  century,  during  which  our  population 
has  increased  from  two  thousand  to  eighty-two  thousand,  and 
our  valuation  from  less  than  two  million  dollars  to  more  than 
eighty-two  millions. 

Notwithstanding  this  large  gain,  at  no  period  of  our  city's 
history  has  her  growth  been  phenomenal  or  exceptional.  Dur- 
ing the  first  two  centuries  after  settlement  this  was  especially 
true.  For  more  than  a  century  and  a  half,  we  learn  from 
Paige's  history,  that  part  of  the  town  lying  eastwardly  from 


FREIGHT  FACILITIES.  127 

Quincy  and  Bow  streets,  generally  called  "  The  Neck,"  consisted 
of  woodland,  pasturage,  swamps,  and  salt  marsh.  To  overcome 
the  natural  disadvantages  of  grade  under  which  the  city  suf- 
fered, the  filling  of  a  large  section  was  necessary,  including  the 
channels  f ormei'ly  constructed  for  the  passage  of  vessels,  leaving 
only  for  such  purpose  the  so-called  Broad  Canal,  which  affords 
access  to  many  coal  and  lumber  yards.  The  several  legislative 
acts  were  approved  as  follows :  That  relating  to  the  Washington 
Street  district  in  1869,  to  the  Franklin  and  Sparks  Streets  dis- 
trict in  1872,  and  to  the  Miller  Kiver  district  in  1873,  Under 
the  provisions  of  these  acts  much  land  was  surrendered  to  the 
city  by  the  owners,  and  was  later  sold  at  about  thirty  per  cent 
of  its  cost. 

In  addition  to  the  freight  facilities  afforded  by  the  navigable 
river,  the  Boston  and  Albany  and  Boston  and  Maine  railroads, 
in  the  easterly  section,  where  are  located  the  greater  number  of 
our  large  manufactories,  and  the  Fitchburg  railroad,  in  the 
westerly  part,  provide  ample  accommodation ;  yet  it  is  hoped 
ere  long  that  a  central  local  freight  station  will  be  furnished  by 
the  former  road,  to  add  to  the  convenience  of  a  rapidly  increas- 
ing traffic.  There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  whether  the 
removal  of  this  branch  of  the  Boston  and  Albany  would  not  on 
the  whole  result  to  the  advantage  of  the  city,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  if  the  removal  could  be  limited  to  the  section  be- 
tween Main  Street  and  the  Cottage  Farm  Station,  great  benefits 
would  accrue  to  that  most  extensive  unoccupied  section  of  the 
city,  to  which  the  Harvard  and  Brookline  bridges  are  imme- 
diately tributary. 

The  advantages  as  a  place  of  residence  of  the  large  area  lying 
between  the  Boston  and  Albany  railroad  and  the  Charles 
River,  and  separated  from  it  only  by  a  boulevard  two  hundred 
feet  in  width,  are  presented  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Tlie 
erection  of  substantial  and  attractive  dwelling-houses  fronting 
this  boulevard  cannot  long  be  delayed,  as  its  southerly  exposure, 
the  firm  foundation  for  building  without  piling,  its  convenience 
to  Boston,  and  other  advantages,  cannot  fail  to  induce  many  of 
her  business  men  to  locate  here.  The  extensive  development 
of  the  adjacent  lands  reaching  northerly  and  westerly,  with 
the  park  improvements  on  the  shores  of  the  Charles,  and  the  ex- 
tensive widening  and  improvement  of  streets  connecting  there- 
with, will  certainly,  within  the  next  few  years,  work  important 


128       REAL-ESTATE  INTERESTS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

changes,  all  in  the  direction  of  valuable  and  substantial  im- 
provement. 

In  the  mercantile  houses  of  the  city  some  recent  improvement 
is  noticeable.  The  exclusion  of  saloons  from  Cambridge  nearly 
ten  years  since  left  vacant  a  large  number  of  shops  upon  our 
principal  thoroughfares,  many  of  which  had  been  cheaply  con- 
structed ;  and  for  the  period  of  two  or  three  years  some  of  them 
were  without  tenants ;  but  gradually  business  which  is  of  value 
to  the  community  has  provided  occupation  for  many,  while 
others  have  been  rebuilt  and  better  adapted  to  the  needs  of 
trade. 

The  extension  of  Main  Street  (now  called  Massachusetts 
Avenue),  through  Front  Street  to  the  Harvard  bridge,  and 
the  diversion  of  the  larger  part  of  the  passenger  travel  over  this 
route,  has  contributed  to  the  centralization  of  trade,  and  the 
section  of  Main  Street  still  retaining  the  name  seems  unlikely 
to  present  equal  attractions  for  the  more  valuable  store  pur- 
poses. The  business  blocks  recently  built  by  F.  A.  Kennedy, 
A.  P.  Morse,  G.  K.  Southwick,  C.  B.  MoUer,  and  H.  Fitzger- 
ald on  Massachusetts  Avenue  are  a  credit  to  the  city,  and  are 
doubtless  only  the  forerunners  of  others  of  like  character  in  this 
neighborhood. 

In  Harvard  Square,  another  business  centre,  fewer  recent 
improvements  have  been  made,  but  the  widening  of  Harvard 
Street  at  this  point  in  1894,  and  the  further  contemplated 
widening  the  present  year  between  Dunster  and  Boylston 
Streets,  —  of  the  latter  street  its  entire  length,  —  will  stimulate 
improvements  in  the  business  accommodations  of  this  locality. 

In  no  part  of  the  city  has  more  ample  and  excellent  provision 
for  existing  needs  of  the  mercantile  interests  been  made  than  in 
North  Cambridge  above  Porter's  Station,  where  the  Henderson, 
Odd  Fellows,  and  other  fine  blocks  have  lately  been  built. 

On  Cambridge  Street  considerable  improvement  has  taken 
place  in  the  store  properties  within  the  past  few  years,  and  the 
large  purchases  of  Middlesex  County  for  a  new  Registry  of 
Deeds  building,  together  with  the  improvement  of  Binney  fields 
for  park  purposes,  render  the  street  much  more  attractive,  and 
increase  the  value  of  property  on  it. 

The  extensive  area  filled  by  the  East  Cambridge  Land  Com- 
pany, which  is  made  more  accessible  by  the  extension  of  First 
Street,  has  tempted  many  large  manufactories  to  that  region. 


HIGH  HOUSES.  129 

and  there  is  still  abundant  room  for  many  more.  This  territory 
is  scarcely  a  mile  from  the  northern  depots  of  Boston,  and  the 
land  is  offered  at  moderate  prices. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  some  of  the  changes  which,  in  the 
course  of  the  growth  of  the  city,  have  taken  place.  The  rapid 
introduction  of  manufacturing  establishments  near  the  shores 
of  the  river,  in  the  easterly  part  of  the  city,  has  multiplied 
the  number  of  homes  for  the  wage-earner,  and  very  many  of 
those  whose  residences  were  there,  desiring  to  improve  their 
surroundings,  have  removed,  and  a  considerable  population 
has  settled  west  of  Prospect  Street,  which  forms  the  easterly 
boundary  of  one  of  the  pleasantest  residential  sections  in 
Cambridge. 

Until  very  recently  the  height  of  the  buildings  in  Cambridge 
has  not  exceeded  four  stories,  and  few  have  contained  more  than 
eight  suites,  yet  two  or  more  student  dormitories  built  in  1895 
exceed  that  height,  and  Ware  Hall  contains  fifty-six  suites  of 
three  rooms  each,  and  one  large  six-story  block  of  twelve  suites 
of  ten  rooms  each,  with  elevators,  on  Massachusetts  Avenue, 
has  just  been  completed.  Next  season,  a  six-story  block  of 
like  character  will  be  built  on  Massachusetts  (formerly  North) 
Avenue,  which  will  provide  for  thirty-six  families.  If  our  pres- 
ent population  were  distributed  throughout  our  city  on  the  lib- 
eral scale  which  formerly  prevailed,  each  family  being  allowed 
a  yard  for  light,  air,  and  children's  playground,  there  would  not 
be  a  single  unoccupied  lot  in  Cambridge,  and  therefore  we  must 
patiently  view  the  introduction  of  the  various  forms  of  apartment 
houses  which  promote  a  form  of  living  which  has  many  disadvan- 
tages, yet  offers  compensation  in  economy  of  labor  and  money. 

The  extension  of  the  West  End  Street  Railway  track  through 
Concord  and  Huron  Avenues,  and  the  widening  and  extension 
of  the  latter  avenue,  have  aided  in  the  development  of  a  large 
territory,  much  of  which  is  at  a  considerable  elevation,  and  over- 
looks Kingsley  Park  and  Fresh  Pond.  A  rapid  growth  in  this 
section  of  our  city  may  be  predicted,  as  hundreds  of  acres  of 
available  land  await  and  invite  occupancy. 

It  is  impossible  to  measure  the  increased  value  to  the  real 
estate  interests  of  Cambridge  made  by  the  park  improvements, 
near  the  shores  of  the  Charles  River,  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Boylston  and  Brookline  bridges,  and  the  building  of  a  bridge 
at  the  foot  of  Magazine  Street,  authorized  by  recent  enactment. 


130        REAL-ESTATE  INTERESTS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

Few  cities  enjoy  or  have  left  so  long  unimproved  such  opportu- 
nities as  the  river  shore  affords  for  a  delighful  park  and  drive- 
way, and  the  aroused  public  spirit,  civic  pride,  and  creative 
force  of  our  citizens  assure  liberal  expenditure  and  rapid  prog- 
ress in  this  important  work.  Real  estate  interests  thrive  in  a 
thriving  community,  and  nowhere  are  the  evidences  of  thrift 
more  abundant  and  conclusive  than  in  Cambridge  to-day,  for 
the  following  reasons  among  others :  Its  remarkable  health- 
fulness  ;  its  exceptional  educational  advantages ;  its  superior 
residential  attractions ;  its  manufactories,  their  character  and 
extent ;  its  excellent  municipal  government ;  its  pure  and  abun- 
dant water  supply,  furnished  at  low  rates;  its  moderate  and 
annually  decreasing  rate  of  taxation ;  its  freedom  from  the 
saloon ;  its  transit  facilities  throughout  the  city,  and  to  and 
from  all  parts  of  Boston  and  adjoining  towns ;  its  ancient  fame, 
historic  associations  and  traditions ;  the  moral  standing  and 
general  intelligence  of  its  citizens ;  the  prevalence  of  "  The 
Cambridge  Idea,"  in  municipal  politics,  which  means  the  high- 
est civic  development;  the  strife  for  the  ideal  in  municipal 
life.  With  such  advantages,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
growth  of  the  city  is  rapid,  symmetrical,  and  healthful.  No 
city  offers  greater  inducements  to  the  manufacturer.  In  the 
more  desirable  residential  sections,  both  in  the  recently  filled 
and  newly  developed  lands  near  Harvard  bridge,  and  other 
portions  of  Ward  Four  near  the  projected  park  and  riverway, 
and  on  the  higher  grounds  of  Wards  One,  Two,  and  Five, 
are  several  hundred  acres  of  land  offering  every  advantage  for 
occupancy,  and  providing  thousands  of  the  finest  and  most 
desirable  building  sites,  with  an  infinite  variety  of  choice,  and 
well  suited  for  the  homes  of  all  classes,  however  modest  or 
luxurious  their  requirements.  In  no  community  is  the  hand 
of  welcome  more  readily  or  warmly  extended  to  the  worthy 
stranger,  or  the  invitation  more  heartily  given  to  dwell  with 
us,  and  share  the  privileges  which  we  so  much  enjoy  and  so 
highly  prize.  At  this  anniversary  period,  the  citizens  of  Cam- 
bridge review  with  satisfaction  and  pride  the  memorable  events 
in  her  long  and  honorable  career,  and  they  look  forward  with 
confidence  and  anticipation  to  a  future  bright  with  promise. 


THE  HEALTH  OF  CAMBRn)GE. 

By  henry  p.   WALCOTT,   M.  D., 
ohaibhan  of  the  massachusetts  boabd  of  health. 

The  health  of  the  city  of  Cambridge  is  not  a  matter  of  guess- 
work, but  stands  accurately  recorded  in  the  pages  of  the  regis- 
tration reports  of  the  State  and  in  the  successive  volumes  of  the 
Census  of  the  United  States. 

Of  the  diseases  which  prevailed  here  before  the  first  regis- 
tration report  in  1841,  we  know  but  little.  When  some  disease 
broke  out  in  the  form  of  an  epidemic  —  like  smallpox,  the  dys- 
entery, or  malignant  sore-throat,  we  find  contemporary  records 
perhaps  of  the  numbers  of  those  dying  from  these  diseases,  but 
more  than  this  we  cannot  now  ascertain. 

The  situation  seems  to  have  been  always  considered  a  health- 
ful one,  however,  notwithstanding  the  large  area  of  low-lying 
land  in  the  town  itself  and  in  the  surrounding  country. 

It  would  be  supposed,  probably,  by  most  people,  that  the 
conditions  of  health  in  Cambridge  and  the  neighboring  city  of 
Boston  would  be  essentially  the  same,  —  the  climate,  the  pres- 
ence of  large  areas  of  flats  exposed  at  low  tide,  the  general 
character  of  the  population,  are  apparently  the  same.  More- 
over, in  Cambridge  are  also  found  large  numbers  of  people  liv- 
ing in  tenement  houses  which  are  crowded  and  poorly  provided 
with  sanitary  arrangements. 

By  the  Eleventh  Census  Cambridge  has  a  density  of  popu- 
lation represented  by  18.77  persons  to  the  acre  ;  Boston,  upon 
the  same  area,  has  only  18.51  persons.  The  most  constant  in- 
fluence unfavorable  to  health  is  generally  considered  to  lie  in 
the  density  of  population.  Bearing  this  fact  in  mind,  it  is  a 
pleasant  surprise  to  find  that  Cambridge  has  better  conditions 
for  health  than  Boston  has,  notwithstanding  the  greater  density 
of  population  in  the  former.  In  Cambridge  19.89  persons  died 
out  of  every  1,000  in  the  course  of  the  census  year;  in  Boston 


132  THE  HEALTH  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

in  the  same  year  there  died  24.79  out  of  every  1,000.  That  is 
to  say,  if  Cambridge  had  been  as  unhealthy  as  Boston  in  this 
year,  instead  of  losing  by  death  1,393  persons,  there  would  have 
died  1,736.  Even  if  nothing  more  than  the  money  value  of 
a  man's  life  is  to  be  considered  in  questions  of  the  relative  ad- 
vantages of  various  cities  as  places  of  residence,  these  343  lives 
represent  a  considerable  advantage  for  the  city  of  Cambridge. 
Especially  when  it  is  remembered  that  it  has  been  found  by 
experience  to  be  true,  that  for  every  person  that  dies  two  other 
persons  will  be  constantly  sick  throughout  the  year.  It  is  a 
matter,  therefore,  of  the  greatest  consequence  that  a  city  should 
be  able  to  offer  the  best  possible  conditions  of  health,  in  order 
to  attract  new  citizens. 

The  city  has  now  a  satisfactory  system  of  sewerage  —  a  water 
supply  that  is  free  from  serious  pollution,  and  a  reasonable  provi- 
sion of  open  spaces,  —  a  hospital  for  contagious  diseases  in  con- 
nection with  the  Cambridge  Hospital,  and  a  Board  of  Health 
which  has  been  in  existence  for  nearly  twenty  years.  Under 
all  these  favoring  influences  the  city  has  made  a  record  in 
healthfulness  of  which  she  may  well  feel  proud,  for  she  stood 
at  the  head  of  the  list  of  thirty-one  registration  cities  which 
were  selected  for  comparison  from  the  whole  country  in  the 
Tenth  Census  of  the  United  States.  In  that  year  there  died  in 
Cambridge  only  17.46  persons  for  1,000  living,  —  a  rate  not 
equaled  by  any  city  of  50,000  inhabitants  in  the  country. 


BURIAL-PLACES   IN   CAMBRIDGE. 

By  GEORGE  S.  SAUNDERS, 

CHAIRMAN   OF    THE   CAMBRIDGE    CEMETERY   COMMISSIONERS. 

Qo  where  the  ancient  pathway  guides, 

See  where  our  sires  laid  down 
Their  smiling  babes,  their  cherished  brides, 

The  patriarchs  of  the  towp ; 
Hast  thou  a  tear  for  buried  love  ? 

A  sigh  for  transient  power  ? 
All  that  a  century  left  above, 

Go,  —  read  it  in  an  hour ! 

O.  W,  Holmes. 

As  early  as  1634-35,  one  John  Pratt  was  granted  two  acres 
of  land,  described  as  situated  "  By  the  old  Burying  Place  with- 
out the  common  pales."  This  deed  indicates  the  first  land  used 
for  burials,  which  was  located,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained, 
on  the  northerly  corner  of  the  present  Ash  and  Brattle  streets, 
outside  of  the  stockade  which  was  erected  in  1632.  Rev.  Abiel 
Holmes,  D.  D.,  wrote  in  the  year  1800,  "  that  £60  was  levied 
3d  February,  1632,  towards  making  a  Palisado  about  the  New 
Towne.  This  was  actually  made,  and  the  fosse  which  was  then 
dug  is  in  some  places  visible  to  this  day.  It  enclosed  above  one 
thousand  acres."  This  in  a  measure  protected  the  little  town 
from  Indians  and  wild  beasts.  This  burial-place  was  discon- 
tinued when  the  present  ancient  ground  on  the  corner  of  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue  and  Garden  Street  was  set  apart  for  burials, 
and  ordered  "  paled  in,"  early  in  1635-36. 

One  hundred  years  later,  1735,  the  town,  with  the  assistance 
of  the  college,  built  a  substantial  stone  wall  in  the  front,  on 
"Menotomy  Road,"  ^  at  a  cost  of  X150.  The  College  Records 
read :  "  Whereas  there  is  a  good  stone  wall  erected  round  the 
Burying  Place  in  Cambridge,  and  whereas  there  has  been  a 
regard  to  the  College  in  building  so  good  and  handsome  a  wall 
^  Now  Massachusetts  Avenue. 


134  BURIAL-PLACES  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

in  the  front,  and  the  College  has  used,  and  expects  to  make  use 
of  the  Burying  Place,  as  Providence  gives  occasion  for  it,  there- 
fore, Voted,  that  as  soon  as  the  said  wall  shall  be  completed, 
the  Treasurer  pay  the  sum  of  <£25  to  the  Committee  of  the 
Town,  Samuel  Danforth,  William  Brattle,  and  Andrew  Board- 
man,  Esquires." 

This  wall  was  removed  some  forty  years  since,  and  a  wooden 
fence  built,  which  in  turn  was  taken  away,  and  in  1893  the  pres- 
ent substantial  iron  fence  erected  on  Massachusetts  Avenue,  Gar- 
den Street,  and  the  northerly  boundary.  This  "  God's  Acre," 
as  it  is  often  called,  contains  the  dust  of  many  of  the  most  emi- 
nent persons  in  Massachusetts  :  the  early  ministers  of  the  town, 
Shepard,  Mitchel,  Oakes,  Appleton,  Hilliard,  and  others ;  early 
presidents  of  Harvard  College,  Dunster,  Chauncy,  Willard ;  the 
first  settlers  and  proprietors,  Simon  Stone,  Deacon  Gregory 
Stone,  Roger  Harlakenden,  John  Bridge,  Stephen  Daye,  Elijah 
Corlett ;  and,  later,  the  Lees,  the  Danas,  AUstons,  and  Wares. 
It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  so  many  graves  remain  un- 
marked, and  equally  so  that  the  names  of  tenants  of  many 
costly  tombs  are  unknown  by  the  very  imperfect  registration,  or 
want  of  registration,  in  the  town  records.  Some  tombs  of  once 
prominent  families,  who  have  become  extinct,  were  built  on  a 
level  with  the  sod,  and  as  no  name  or  mark  whatever  is  to  be 
seen,  are  walked  over  unknown.  Several  of  the  substantial 
above-ground  monuments  had  tablets  inserted  with  names 
thereon,  which  have  been  broken  out  and  lost,  and  only  a  blank 
aperture  remains.  This  was  caused  largely  by  the  scarcity 
of  lead  in  the  Revolution,  when  the  lead  in  which  the  tablets 
were  embedded  was  removed  for  bullet-making,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  old  church  building  near  by  was  desecrated.  The 
Judge  Trowbridge  tomb,  near  the  gateway,  has  been  substan- 
tially indicated  within  a  few  years.  Inclosed  therein  is  the 
commingled  dust  of  very  eminent  families  for  several  genera- 
tions. Near  this  is  the  prominent  Vassall  monument,  with  the 
figures  of  a  vase  and  the  sun,  the  armorial  bearings  of  the 
family.  Near  by  is  the  ancient  mutilated  milestone,  first  placed 
near  the  "  Old  Court  House,"  in  the  present  Harvard  Square, 
in  1734,  on  which  is  cut  "  8  miles  to  Boston,"  the  above  date, 
and  the  initials  "  A.  I.,"  of  him  who  cut  and  first  placed  it. 
This  directed  travelers  the  way  to  Boston  through  Roxbury, 
over  the  only  bridge  that  then  crossed  Charles  River,  to  "  Little 


GRA  VES  OF  MINUTE-MEN.  186 

Cambridge,"  now  Brighton.  The  above  initials  are  explained 
on  a  headstone  near  by :  "  Here  lyes  buried  the  body  of  Mr. 
Abraham  Ireland,  who  departed  this  life  January  24th,  1753, 
in  y®  81st  year  of  his  age.  Pray  God  to  give  grace  —  To  fly  to 
Christ  —  To  prepare  for  Eternity." 

In  1870,  the  city  erected  a  simple  but  appropriate  monument 
to  mark  the  place  of  burial  of  a  few  of  the  Cambridge  Minute- 
Men,  killed  Aj)ril  19,  1775.  On  the  occasion  of  its  dedica- 
tion, November  3,  1870,  Kev.  Dr.  McKenzie  delivered  a  very 
interesting  and  suggestive  address.  He  said  most  eloquently 
that  it  was  pleasant  for  us  to  remember  that  our  domain  was 
wider  then  than  now,  and  with  a  worthy  pride  we  claim  the 
glory  of  Menotomy  for  the  praise  of  Cambridge.  Arlington 
may  guard  their  dust,  Cambridge  will  overleap  the  narrow  brook 
and  claim  them  for  her  own,  and  let  the  19th  of  April,  1775, 
hereafter  be  known,  as  it  always  should  have  been,  as  the  day 
of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  Concord,  and  Cambridge.  More 
men  were  killed  and  wounded  within  the  then  limits  of  Cam- 
bridge than  in  all  the  other  towns.  With  the  names  on  the 
monument  Dr.  McKenzie  also  suggested  adding  the  prophetic 
vision  of  Samuel  Adams,  "  Oh !  what  a  glorious  morning  is 
this !  "     The  full  inscription  is : 

erected  by  the  city,  a.  d.  1870 

to  the  memory  of 

John  Hicks,  —  William  Marcy,  —  Moses  Richardson, 

BURIED   here. 

Jason  Russell,  —  Jabez  Wyman,  —  Jason  Winship, 

buried  in  menotomy. 

men  of  cambridge, 

who  fell  in  defence  of  the  liberty  of  the  people, 

APRIL   19th,    1775. 
OH!    WHAT  A    GLORIOUS   MORNING   IS   THIS! 

In  searching  in  1870,  to  find  the  place  of  burial  preparatory  to 
erecting  this  monument,  excavations  were  made  along  the  north- 
erly line  of  the  grounds,  and  several  skulls  were  found  with 
bullet  holes,  showing  where  some  of  our  killed  at  Bunker  HiU 
were  buried ;  but  the  grave  of  Colonel  Thomas  Gardner,  a 
prominent  citizen  of  Cambridge,  a  member  of  the  Congress  at 
Watertown  with  General  Joseph  Warren,  is  unknown.  He 
was  mortally  wounded  at  Bunker  Hill.  The  first  official  order 
of  General  Washington  here,  July  4,  1775,  was  for  full  military- 
honors  at  his  funeral  that  day.     Near  this  locality  is  the  grave 


136  BURIAL-PLACES  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

of  John  Hughes,  a  young  man  who  died  and  was  buried  among 
strangers.  The  inscription  on  the  headstone  reads :  "  Beneath 
this  tomb  rests  the  remains  of  Mr.  John  Hughes,  of  Norwich 
in  Connecticut.  He  died  in  his  country's  cause,  July  y®  25th, 
A.  D.  1775,  in  y^  21st  year  of  his  age. 

Reader, 

DEATH  IS  A  DEBT  TO  NATURE  DUE  ; 
AS  I  HAVE  PAID  IT,  SO  MUST  YOU." 

Another  has  a  similar  inscription  to  John  Stearns,  died  August 
22,  1775,  aged  23  years.  The  "  mound,"  on  the  Garden  Street 
side,  incloses  tombs  of  once  prominent  families,  that  of  Deacon 
Gideon  Frost,  Deacon  Josiah  Moore,  Major  Jonas  Wyeth,  and 
probably  of  Israel  Porter,  of  the  Blue  Anchor  Hostelry.  Op- 
posite, in  the  centre  of  the  grounds,  is  the  most  prominent 
tomb,  with  this  inscription,  and  many  more  lines  of  obituary :  — 

dt  this  tomb  are  deposited  the  remains  of 

Thomas  Lee,  Esquire, 

a  native  of  great  britain, 

but  fob  many  years  a  citizen  of  america. 

death  released  him  from  his  sufferings  may  26th,  1797, 

in  the  60th  year  of  his  age. 

Near  the  front  boundary  is  a  brick  monument,  covered  with 
a  massive  stone  block,  on  which  is  cut :  — 

hebe  liyeth  interred  ye  body  of 

Major-General  Gookin, 

aged  75  years, 

who  departed  this  life  ye  19th  of  march,  1686-7. 

The  tomb  probably  contains  the  remains  of  his  family,  includ- 
ing his  son,  the  Rev.  Nathaniel  Gookin.  General  Gookin  was 
an  influential  man  in  the  early  days  of  the  colony. 

Near  this  are  the  tombs  of  Governor  Belcher,  Dr.  Garaage, 
the  Watsons,  and  the  Munroes,  level  with  the  sod  and  un- 
marked. 

In  the  year  1845,  Mr.  William  Thaddeus  Harris  published  a 
very  useful  book  of  epitaphs  from  this  old  ground,  "  from  the 
earliest  date  to  the  year  1800."  In  the  years  succeeding  1800, 
with  a  few  exceptions,  the  names  only,  on  the  monuments 
erected  since  that  date,  are  given.     Therefore  it  is  hoped  that 


•    CEMETERY  COMMISSIONERS.  137 

some  modern  Old  Mortality,  with  the  records  of  the  first  pro- 
prietors and  the  town,  together  with  the  needed  tools  of  his 
profession  in  hand,  will  yet  be  commissioned  to  scan  every 
stone,  monument,  and  all  records,  for  the  names  of  those  rest- 
ing in  this  consecrated  ground  of  the  Fathers.  We  certainly 
owe  this,  ere  it  is  too  late,  to  those  who  shall  come  after  us. 

The  city  of  Cambridge  should  add  an  honor  to  its  semi-centen- 
nial this  year  by  erecting  a  simple  monument  or  tablet  near  that 
of  Jonathan  Mitchel,  in  commemoration  of  Rev.  Thomas  Shep- 
ard,  who  died  August  25,  1649.  He  made  it  possible  for  Cam- 
bridge to  be  honorably  known  everywhere  as  the  "  University 
City."  An  eye-witness  and  historian  of  his  time  says,  "To 
make  the  whole  world  understand  that  spiritual  learning  was 
the  thing  they  chiefly  desired,  to  sanctify  the  other,  and  make 
the  whole  lump  holy,  and  that  learning,  being  set  upon  its  right 
object,  might  not  contend  for  error  instead  of  truth,  they  chose 
this  Place^  being  then  under  the  orthodox  and  soul-flourishing 
Ministry  of  Mr.  Thomas  Shepheard." 

In  1885  the  City  Council  placed  this  ancient  burial-ground 
in  charge  of  the  Board  of  Cemetery  Commissioners.  By  their 
direction  it  was  thoroughly  renovated,  ornamental  trees  and 
shrubs  were  planted,  the  gravestones  were  righted  and  otherwise 
put  in  a  condition  suitably  becoming  the  resting-place  of  so 
many  of  our  honored  dead. 

About  the  year  1811,  with  the  continued  growth  of  East 
Cambridge  and  Cambridgeport,  the  old  ground  had  become 
crowded,  and  "  more  than  once  "  entirely  filled ;  then  an  urgent 
call  was  made  for  another  burial-place.  Two  and  one  fourth 
acres  of  ground  were  purchased  on  Broadway,  at  the  corner  of 
Norfolk  Street.  This  was  used  nearly  a  half  century,  mostly 
by  the  inhabitants  of  those  sections  of  the  town,  until  the 
year  1854,  when  the  present  cemetery  on  Coolidge  Avenue  was 
laid  out  under  the  direction  of  a  committee  appointed  by  the 
city  government. 

The  services  of  consecration  were  held  on  the  premises  No- 
vember 1,  1854,  and  this  beautiful  spot  was  sacredly  set  apart 
for  its  new  purpose.  Remarks  on  the  occasion  were  made 
by  Hon.  Abraham  Edwards,  then  mayor,  and  the  consecration 
address  was  given  by  Rev.  Jolm  A.  Albro,  D.  D.,  who  aptly 
said  in  reference  to  the  place  :  "  Its  locality,  —  its  natural  fea- 
tures, —  its  seclusion  from  the  great  thoroughfares  of  life,  make 


188  BURIAL-PLACES  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

it  a  spot  preeminently  adapted  to  the  end  for  which  it  has  been 
chosen.  Within  these  grounds,  and  not  far  from  where  we  are 
now  standing,  the  first  Christian  proprietor  of  this  soil,  Simon 
Stone,  a  companion  in  faith  and  tribulation  of  our  Shepard, 
and  one  of  the  noble  band  of  Puritans,  who  first  established  the 
Church  of  God  in  this  Town,  built  his  dwelling,  and  planted 
trees  which  yet  bear  their  fruit."  The  original  purchase  con- 
tained about  twenty-five  acres.  Since  then  additions  of  land 
have  been  made  on  the  northern  boundary,  and  by  the  further 
purchase  of  the  Winchester  estate  on  the  south,  so  that  to-day 
the  whole  area  is  more  than  sixty  acres. 

The  Broadway  ground  was  disused  in  1865,  by  authority 
from  the  General  Court,  April  29th  of  that  year,  as  follows : 
"  Resolved^  That  the  City  Council  of  the  City  of  Cambridge  is 
hereby  authorized,  at  the  expense  of  the  city,  to  remove  the 
remains  of  the  dead  from  the  burial-ground  between  Broadway 
and  Harvard  Street  in  Ward  number  Two  in  said  Cambridge, 
to  the  Cambridge  cemetery,  or  such  other  burial-place  in  the 
vicinity  of  Cambridge  as  the  relatives  and  friends  of  the  de- 
ceased may  designate  and  provide.  Said  ground  shall  be  sur- 
rounded by  suitable  enclosures,  and  shall  forever  remain  unused 
for  a  public  street,  unoccupied  by  any  building,  and  kept  open 
as  a  public  park." 

This  was  faithfully  carried  out  by  the  city  council  of  1868. 
Suitable  walks  were  made,  and  ornamental  trees,  shrubbery, 
etc.,  planted,  thus  making  of  the  old  burial-place  a  pleasant, 
rural,  public  park. 

The  care  of  the  cemetery  is  under  the  charge  of  six  commis- 
sioners, appointed  by  the  mayor,  and  confirmed  by  the  board  of 
aldermen,  their  terms  of  office  being  for  three  years.  In  1868 
a  substantial  ornamental  stone  building  was  erected,  suited  to 
the  needs  of  the  cemetery,  with  rooms  for  the  superintendent 
and  his  assistants,  and  for  funeral  services. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  a  liberal  area  of  ground  was  set  apart 
as  a  burial-place  for  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  Grand  Army  of 
the  Republic.  This  was  decorated  with  a  group  of  cannon,  etc., 
given  for  the  purpose  by  the  United  States  Government.  One 
hundred  and  twenty-four  interments  have  been  made,  and  the 
lot  is  now  filled.  Recently,  another  lot  near  the  entrance  way 
has  been  set  apart  for  a  similar  purpose,  making  provision  for 
two  hundred  and  twenty  burials.     The  number  of  interments, 


MOUNT  AUBURN  CEMETERY.  139 

including  the  removals  from  the  Broadway  ground,  since  its 
consecration  in  1854,  have  been  twenty  thousand  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five. 

In  1892  an  iron  fence  was  constructed  on  Coolidge  Avenue, 
together  with  a  neat,  substantial  iron  and  stone  gateway,  in 
place  of  the  original  one  of  wood,  built  in  1854. 

By  a  wise  foresight,  a  generation  or  more  ago,  this  beautiful 
spot  was  selected  as  a  place  of  burial.  Through  the  liberal 
appropriations  of  the  several  city  councils,  it  has  been  enlarged 
on  either  side,  and  with  the  faithful,  judicious  oversight  of  those 
intrusted  with  its  care,  this  "  City  of  the  Dead  "  has  reached 
its  present  attractive  and  satisfactory  condition,  sacred  by  many 
precious,  holy  associations,  and  hallowed  as  the  resting-place  of 
the  honored  and  beloved  who  have  passed  from  our  sight.^ 

The  picturesque  grounds  of  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery  are 
situated  on  the  westerly  boundary  line  of  Cambridge.  In  the 
early  settlement  of  the  town,  the  tract  was  known  as  "  Stone's 
Woods,"  being  the  northerly  part  of  Simon  Stone's  farming 
lands,  which  were  bounded  on  the  south  by  Charles  River. 
The  woods  were  later  known  as  Sweet  Auburn,  and  were  the 
property  of  the  Massachusetts  Horticultural  Society.  In  June, 
1831,  this  society,  by  an  act  of  the  legislature,  was  authorized 
to  appropriate  any  part  of  its  real  estate  for  a  rural  cemetery 
or  burial-ground.  The  design  for  such  a  cemetery  had  long 
been  considered  with  approbation,  and  the  favored  opportimity 
of  securing  Sweet  Auburn  for  the  purpose  was  at  once  earnestly 
attempted.  This  tract  is  undidating,  and  contains  bold  emi- 
nences and  attractive  dales.  The  highest  ground  is  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  feet  above  Charles  River,  and  on  it  stands 
a  stone  tower  sixty  feet  high.  From  the  tower  the  "  winding 
Charles,"  in  all  its  beauty,  can  be  seen  in  one  direction ;  the 
city  of  Boston,  and  the  Blue  Hills  of  Milton  are  in  the  distance ; 
Cambridge  is  near  by,  with  the  venerable  and  modern  build- 
ings of  Harvard  University ;  and  in  another  direction  is  Fresh 
Pond,  the  source  of  our  city's  supply  of  water,  surrounded  by 
its  woody,  irregular  shores  and  grand  avenues  for  pleasure- 
driving. 

The  first  committee  for  the  cemetery  was  composed  of  influ- 

^  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  William  A.  Saunders,  a  member  of  the  first 
Board  of  Cemetery  Commissioners,  for  many  historical  incidents  and  sug- 
gestions as  herein  set  forth. 


140  BURIAL-PLACES  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

ential  men,  the  late  Judge  Story  being  chairman.  It  met 
August  3,  1831,  and  received  a  very  encouraging  report. 
August  8th,  another  committee  was  selected  to  procure  a  sur- 
vey, and  a  plan  for  laying  out  lots.  This  survey  was  by  Alex- 
ander Wadsworth,  civil  engineer. 

The  consecration  of  the  cemetery  occurred  on  Saturday,  Sep- 
tember 24,  1831,  the  late  Judge  Story  delivering  the  address, 
in  "  Consecration  "  Dell,  as  it  has  since  been  called.  An  audi- 
ence of  two  thousand  persons,  seated  in  a  temporary  amphi- 
theatre among  the  trees,  added  a  scene  of  picturesque  beauty 
to  the  impressive  solemnity  of  the  occasion. 

In  the  year  1835  the  legislature  incorporated  the  proprietors 
as  the  "  Mount  Auburn  Corporation."  The  first  purchase  of 
land  contained  seventy-two  acres  ;  the  present  area  is  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  acres. 

The  first  recorded  burial  is  that  of  a  child  of  James  Boyd,  of 
Roxbury,  July  6,  1832,  on  Mountain  Avenue ;  the  second,  that 
of  Mrs.  Hastings,  July  12,  1832,  on  the  same  avenue. 

On  elevated  ground,  not  far  distant  from  the  gateway,  stands 
a  chapel  made  of  granite,  of  Gothic  design.  Within  are  mar- 
ble statues,  in  a  sitting  position,  of  the  late  Judge  Story,  and 
of  John  Winthrop,  the  first  governor  of  Massachusetts.  Two 
others  standing,  of  John  Adams,  the  second  president  of  the 
United  States,  and  James  Otis,  the  patriot.  The  Sphinx,  the 
Egyptian  symbol  of  might  and  intelligence,  was  erected  in 
1872,  and  fronts  the  chapel.  It  is  a  massive  monument,  recall- 
ing our  civil  war  by  its  inscription,  — 

AMERICAN   UNION   PRESERVED 
AMERICAN  SLAVERY   DESTROYED 
^  BY   THE   UPRISING   OF   A   GREAT   PEOPLE 

BY   THE   BLOOD   OF    FALLEN   HEROES  i 

The  gateway  to  the  cemetery  is  built  of  Quincy  granite,  the 
design  being  taken  from  the  entrance  to  an  Egyptian  temple. 
It  bears  the  following  in  bold  raised  letters :  — 

"  Then  shall  the  Dust  return  to  the  Earth  as  it  was  ;  and  the  Spirit 
shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it." 

Near  this,  at  the  entrance  of  a  high  natural  ridge,  with  a  level 
surface,  running  through  the  grounds,  called  "  Indian  Ridge," 
is  the  sarcophagus  of  Gaspar  Spurzheim,  the  celebrated  phre- 
nologist ;  he  died  in  1832.  Farther  on  is  that  of  the  poet 
Longfellow,  who  died  in  1882. 


ILLUSTRIOUS  NAMES.  141 

On  Central  Avenue,  near  the  gateway,  is  the  bronze  statue, 
sitting,  of  Dr.  Nathaniel  Bowditch. 

On  High  Cedar  HiU  stands  a  beautiful  marble  temple ;  be- 
neath which  rest  the  remains  of  Hon.  Samuel  Appleton. 

Others  eminent  in  public  life  rest  here  in  this  sacred  soil :  — 

Charles  Sumner.  Rufus  Choate. 

Louis  Agassiz.  Rev.  Wm.  EUery  Chanuing. 

President  C.  C.  Felton.  Edwin  Booth. 

Gov.  Edward  Everett.  Charlotte  Cushman. 

Gov.  Emory  Washburn.  Joseph  E.  Worcester. 

Anson  Burlingame.  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks. 

President  Josiah  Quincy.  James  Russell  Lowell. 

John  G.  Palfrey.  Rev.  A.  Holmes,  D.  D. 

President  Sparks.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Robert  C.  Winthrop. 

On  Gentian  Path  is  a  beautiful  granite  obelisk,  erected  by 
Thomas  Dowse,  on  wliich  is  inscribed  — 

TO   THE   MEMORY   OF 

Benjamin  Franklin,  the  Printer, 

THE   philosopher, 

THE   STATESMAN, 

THE    PATRIOT, 

WHO   BY   HIS   WISDOM   BLESSED   HIS   COUNTRY,  AND   HIS   AGE, 

AND   BEQUEATHED   TO   THE   WORLD   AN   ILLUSTRIOUS 

EXAMPLE   OF   INDUSTRY,  INTEGRITY, 

AND   SELF-CULTURE. 

BORN   IN   BOSTON,  MDCCVI., 

DIED   IN   PHILADELPHIA,  MDCCXC. 

The  number  of  interments  to  January  1,  1896,  is  30,861. 

Mount  Auburn's  greatest  interest  is  in  the  fact  that  within 
this  beautiful  "  City  of  the  Dead  "  are  gathered  together  those 
whose  lives  and  characters  are  illustrious  in  the  history  of  the 
country,  and  whose  names  are  symbols  of  great  achievements. 

The  sixty-fourth  annual  report,  January  1,  1896,  shows  its 
solid  financial  success.  The  several  funds  in  care  of  the  corpo- 
ration amount  to  the  sum  of  $1,342,582,  which  began  with  the 
original  purchase  of  72  acres  of  ground,  at  a  cost  of  16,000. 

Outside  of  the  cemetery  grounds,  the  corporation  owns  some 
fifteen  acres  of  land,  a  part  adjoining  the  cemetery,  on  which 
are  situated  greenhouses  of  the  latest  model,  a  liberal  homestead 
for  the  superintendent,  and  other  buildings,  stables,  etc. 


HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 

IN  ITS  RELATIONS  TO  THE  CITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 
BY  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT,  LL.  D.,  PRESIDENT. 

The  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  College  own  at 
present  (April,  1896)  S2^^-^  acres  of  land  within  the  limits 
of  the  city  of  Cambridge,  the  total  present  area  of  the  city, 
according  to  Paige,  the  historian  of  Cambridge,  being  about 
four  and  one-half  square  miles  (2880  acres).  The  land  now 
held  by  the  President  and  Fellows  has  been  acquired  as  a 
result  of  107  separate  negotiations,  extending  from  1638  to  the 
present  day.  The  following  table  shows  the  nature  of  these 
transactions ;  but  in  this  table  no  account  is  made  of  transac- 
tions which  did  not  relate  to  land  now  in  possession  of  the 
university  :  — 

54  separate  purchases. 

7  separate  re-purchases  of  land  previously  sold  by  the  University. 

8  separate  devises  and  gifts. 

1  gift  or  purchase  (Bradish  lot  on  Holyoke  Street,  —  mode  of  acquisi- 
tion uncertain). 
26  separate  sales. 

4  separate  sales  of  land,  the  whole  or  part  of  which  was  afterward 
bought  back. 

7  or  more  contributions,  or  takings  by  the  town  or  city,  for  laying  out 
or  widening  streets. 

1  taking  by  the  city  for  park  purposes. 

107  transactions. 

Of  this  area  of  823^^  acres,  the  town  gave  3|^|  acres.  The 
rest  of  the  area  is  the  result  of  purchases,  devises,  and  other 
gifts,  offset  in  some  measure  by  sales,  contributions  from  col- 
lege land  to  streets,  and  takings  by  the  town  or  city. 

The  College  Yard  —  as  the  inclosure  between  Massachusetts 
Avenue  and  Broadway,  Peabody  Street  and  Quincy  Street  is 
called  —  was  acquired  in  twelve  parcels  in  the  course  of  two 


THE  COLLEGE  ESTATE.  143 

centuries,  that  is,  between  1638  and  1835.  The  delta  on  which 
Memorial  Hall  stands  was  bought  in  two  parcels  between  1786 
and  1816,  one  of  these  parcels  having  been  procured  in  one 
of  the  College  Yard  transactions.  After  these  purchases  were 
made,  Cambridge  Street  and  Broadway  were  laid  out  through 
them.  The  land  north  of  Cambridge  Street  and  south  of  Ever- 
ett Street  was  bought  in  thirteen  parcels  between  1816  and 
1839.  Before  many  years  had  elapsed,  considerable  portions  of 
this  land  were  sold ;  and  there  have  been  seven  re-purchases  of 
parts  of  the  parcels  thus  sold.  In  this  region  the  President  and 
Fellows  once  owned  more  than  twice  the  area  which  they  now 
own  ;  but  the  sales  made  by  the  college  were  nevertheless  judi- 
cious ;  for  land  within  this  region  has  been  repeatedly  bought 
back  at  prices  less  than  those  for  which  it  was  sold  by  the  col- 
lege with  compound  interest  at  five  per  cent,  computed  thereon. 
Of  the  land  procured  for  the  Botanic  Garden  in  1818,  nearly 
all  still  remains  in  the  possession  of  the  college,  the  missing 
area  having  been  taken  for  widening  streets.  Across  Garden 
Street  from  the  Botanic  Garden  more  than  600,000  feet  of  land 
were  bought  between  1841  and  1886  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Observatory  ;  but  nearly  one  half  of  that  area  was  subsequently 
sold.  The  land  on  which  College  House  now  stands  was  ac- 
quired in  six  parcels  between  1772  and  1806,  one  parcel  having 
been  devised  by  Judge  Lee,  and  the  others  having  been  bought. 
The  acquisition  of  land  by  the  President  and  Fellows  has 
been  going  on  gradually  all  through  the  existence  of  the  insti- 
tution, but  with  different  degrees  of  activity.  The  first  lands 
acquired  were  the  western  part  of  the  College  Yard  and  the 
lots  near  Holyoke  and  Dunster  streets.  The  enlargement  of 
the  College  Yard  to  the  eastward  was  the  next  object ;  and  then 
came  the  extensions  to  the  north,  namely,  the  Memorial  Hall 
delta,  the  Old  Gymnasium  delta,  and  the  purchases  north  of 
Kirkland  Street.  The  Observatory  lands  were  acquired  later 
still,  while  Holmes  Field  and  Jarvis  Field  were  not  purchased 
till  after  the  Civil  War.  The  university  now  owns  land 
enough  in  Cambridge  to  make  it  certain  that  the  setting  of  the 
university  buildings  will  be  an  open  one  for  many  generations 
to  come ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  wiU  not  be  necessary  that  the 
university  buildings  should  stand  close  upon  the  streets  as 
houses  stand  in  the  densely  built  quarters  of  a  city.  They  will 
continue  to  be  surrounded  by  grass  and  trees,  even  though  the 


144  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 

number  of  students  in  Cambridge  should  be  multiplied  by  three, 
four,  or  five  in  the  centuries  to  come.  This  determination  of 
the  character  of  the  university  grounds  is  important  to  the 
city ;  for  the  city  has  much  to  gain  from  the  continued  open- 
ness of  the  university  grounds.  The  denser  the  population  of 
Cambridge  becomes,  the  more  valuable  to  it  will  be  the  open 
spaces  round  the  university  buildings,  particularly  as  it  is 
beyond  doubt  that  these  open  areas  will  as  time  goes  on  be 
kept  in  a  more  and  more  decorative  condition.  Great  improve- 
ment in  this  respect  has  been  made  during  the  last  twenty-five 
years.  In  1869  there  was  a  shabby  board  fence  along  the 
southern  side  of  the  College  Yard  almost  all  the  way  from 
Quincy  Street  to  Wadsworth  House ;  and  up  to  that  time  it 
had  not  been  the  custom  to  keep  the  College  Yard  in  a  neat 
and  pleasing  condition. 

There  was  a  time  when  reservations  for  schools  and  colleges, 
churches  and  hospitals,  were  regarded  with  disfavor  by  some  of 
the  residents  of  Massachusetts  towns  and  cities.  They  were 
held  to  be  withdrawn  from  ordinary  uses  for  residence  or  busi- 
ness, and  therefore  to  be  a  burden  on  the  city  or  town ;  but 
the  recent  almost  unanimous  movement  of  the  population  of 
eastern  Massachusetts  in  favor  of  large  reservations  for  park 
purposes  and  for  boulevards,  and  the  almost  universal  regret 
that  our  public  schoolhouses  are  not  surrounded  by  suitable 
play-grounds,  have  opened  the  public  mind  to  the  perception 
of  the  general  fact  that  a  dense  population  absolutely  needs 
numerous  reservations  in  order  to  secure  for  itself  a  reasona- 
bly healthy  and  pleasurable  existence.  It  needs  open  spaces 
for  grass,  trees,  and  flowers  ;  and  for  purposes  of  enjoyment 
it  should  live  in  daily  sight  of  interesting  and  uplifting  insti- 
tutions, suitably  equipped  with  buildings  and  grounds.  The 
proved  commercial  advantages  of  wide  avenues  have  also 
taught  the  people  that  large  areas  can  profitably  be  reserved 
from  the  ordinary  uses  of  residence  or  business.  Severe  expe- 
rience has  taught  the  urban  populations  of  Massachusetts  that 
it  is  of  little  use  to  erect  fine  buildings,  unless  they  can  be 
placed  on  fine  sites.  If  a  city  hall  of  noble  aspect  is  built  on  a 
narrow  street,  from  which  no  one  can  survey  its  just  propor- 
tions and  elegant  decoration,  if  a  court-house  is  erected  in  a 
kind  of  pocket,  so  small  that  its  facade  cannot  be  seen  as 
a  whole  from  any  single  point  except  one  too  close  for  a  general 


CAMBRIDGE   VALUATIONS  INCREASED.  145 

view,  the  money  expended  on  these  structures,  so  far  as  the 
enjoyment  of  the  passer-by  goes,  is  in  large  degree  wasted. 
They  may  be  convenient  for  the  uses  of  the  j)eople  who  repair 
to  their  interiors ;  but  they  cannot  afford  to  the  citizens  of  the 
place  the  satisfaction  which  comes  from  the  unobstructed  con- 
templation of  noble  buildings.  Cambridge  is  old  enough  to 
have  escaped  the  tiresome  and  wasteful  laying-out  in  squares 
which  deprives  most  American  cities  of  fine  sites  for  large 
buildings.  It'  has  many  curving  roads  and  irregular  corner 
pieces,  on  which  handsome  buildings  can  be  suitably  disposed 
and  displayed ;  but  as  time  goes  on,  it  will  have  great  reason  to 
be  thankful  for  the  continuing  openness  of  the  eighty-two  acres 
which  belong  to  Harvard  University. 

The  population  of  Cambridge  is  considerably  enlarged  by  the 
presence  of  the  university.  About  three  thousand  students, 
out  of  the  thirty-six  hundred  now  in  the  university,  live  in 
Cambridge.  In  the  long  vacation  nearly  six  hundred  other 
students  come  for  the  nmnerous  summer  courses.  More  than 
one  hundred  of  the  teachers  and  other  officers  of  the  university 
occupy  houses  in  Cambridge  and  maintain  households  therein. 
There  are  from  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  to  two  hundred 
unmarried  officers  who  live  in  or  near  the  university.  On  the 
Catalogue  of  the  year  1895-96,  two  hundred  and  fifty  students 
give  Cambridge  as  their  home  address.  Every  year  a  consider- 
able number  of  families  move  to  Cambridge  in  order  to  educate 
their  children  at  the  university.  Many  families  that  originally 
came  to  Cambridge,  either  to  educate  their  children,  or  because 
the  bread-winner  became  a  university  teacher,  have  remained 
in  Cambridge.  Some  of  the  most  famous  houses  in  Cambridge 
to-day  are  houses  built  for  or  occupied  by  professors  of  a  former 
generation.  It  is  enough  to  mention  the  Norton,  Palfrey,  Agas- 
siz,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell  houses.  Some  of  the  largest  tax- 
able properties  in  the  city  are  to-day  taxed  here,  because  the 
university  either  brought  to  Cambridge,  or  kept  in  Cambridge, 
the  creators  or  inheritors  of  these  properties.  Because  of  the 
presence  of  the  university.  Old  Cambridge  has  always  been  the 
best  residence  quarter  of  the  city,  and  it  is  likely  to  remain  so. 

Within  the  last  twenty  years  the  university  has  begun  to 
maintain  collections  of  great  interest  and  value,  which  are  open 
to  the  public  under  suitable  regulation.  The  Botanic  Garden, 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  the  botanical  and  miner- 


146  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

alogical  collections,  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  the  Semitic  Museum,  and  the  Fogg  Museum  of 
Art,  are  all  objects  of  interest  to  the  Cambridge  public.  On 
Wednesday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  afternoons  these  collections 
are  visited  by  large  numbers  of  people,  particularly  from  the  1st 
of  April  to  the  1st  of  December.  As  the  university  becomes 
richer,  this  function  towards  the  public  will  be  more  and  more 
important. 

From  the  1st  of  October  to  the  1st  of  May,  the  university 
provides  a  very  large  number  of  evening  lectures  which  are 
open  to  the  public.  These  lectures  cover  a  wide  range  of  sub- 
jects, and  are  generally  given  by  eminent  experts.  They  relate 
to  history,  political  science,  the  fine  arts,  philosophy,  and  litera- 
ture, and  afford  to  the  Cambridge  public  many  opportunities  of 
seeing  and  hearing  distinguished  men,  and  of  getting  from  the 
lecturers  varied  information  and  judicious  incitement  to  good 
reading.  It  is  Mr.  Henry  L.  Higginson's  desire  to  serve  the  offi- 
cers and  students  of  the  university  which  has  caused  an  annual 
series  of  concerts  to  be  given  by  the  Boston  Symphony  Orches- 
tra in  Sanders  Theatre,  —  that  admirable  room  for  music. 

The  University  Chapel  has  become  of  late  years  a  new  centre 
of  interest  for  residents  of  Cambridge.  Throughout  the  year 
Sunday  evening  services  are  conducted  there  by  eminent  men  of 
many  different  denominations  —  from  Jew  to  Catholic  —  and 
from  November  to  April  short  services  are  also  held  every 
Thursday  afternoon.  The  chapel  music  has  been  made  inter- 
esting, and  helpful  devotionally.  The  undenominational  policy 
of  the  university  makes  its  chapel  a  unique  institution  as  a 
place  both  of  worship  and  of  moral  and  religious  instruction. 
All  sorts  of  Cambridge  people  resort  to  it,  some  occasionally 
and  some  habitually. 

The  public  schools  of  Cambridge  are  the  better  for  the  pres- 
ence of  the  university.  A  long  line  of  presidents  and  profes- 
sors have  taken  strong  interest  in  the  Cambridge  schools,  and 
have  contributed  to  their  progress  and  wise  management.  The 
Cambridge  High  School  has  been  for  many  years  an  exception- 
ally good  one ;  and  since  the  division  was  made  between  the 
High  school  and  the  Latin  school  the  same  excellent  quality  has 
distinguished  the  Cambridge  Latin  School.  In  these  schools 
hundreds  of  Cambridge  children  have  been  prepared  for  en- 
trance to  the  university.     Any  citizen  of  Cambridge,  who  can 


PRIVATE  DORMITORIES.  147 

afford  to  maintain  his  children  until  they  are  ready  to  practice 
a  profession,  can  be  sure  of  their  receiving  the  best  liberal  and 
professional  education  given  in  this  country,  while  all  the  time 
his  children  may  live  economically  at  home. 

The  establishment  in  Cambridge  of  the  business  of  printing 
and  binding  books  is  historically  due  to  the  university.  The 
first  printing  press  in  the  colony  belonged  to  Harvard  College ; 
and  ever  since  that  first  press  was  set  up  the  business  of  print- 
ing has  been  successfully  pursued  here.  With  the  development 
of  the  national  territory  and  the  national  wealth  the  manufac- 
ture of  books  has  been  established  at  many  other  centres ;  but 
at  this  moment  three  of  the  most  important  book  presses  in  the 
country  —  presses  in  which  the  very  best  work  is  done  —  are 
situated  in  Cambridge.  The  business  of  lodging  and  boarding 
students  is  a  considerable  one  in  that  part  of  the  city  called  Old 
Cambridge.  The  university  buildings  do  not  provide  cham- 
bers for  even  half  the  students ;  and  Memorial  Hall  and  the 
Foxcroft  Club  together  cannot  furnish  board  to  more  than  half 
of  the  members  of  the  Cambridge  departments  of  the  uni- 
versity who  have  no  homes  in  Cambridge.  For  lodging  the 
richer  class  of  students  large  and  handsome  private  dormitories 
have  of  late  years  been  erected,  buildings  which  add  consid- 
erably to  the  valuation  of  the  city  for  purposes  of  taxation. 
These  buildings  become  more  and  more  substantial  and  elegant; 
and  it  seems  probable  that  they  will  be  a  more  and  more  im- 
portant element  in  the  taxable  property  of  the  city.  The  first 
of  these  buildings  was  erected  forty  years  ago  by  Mr.  Charles 
C.  Little,  senior  member  of  the  well-known  bookselling  firm  of 
Little  &  Brown.  His  example  was  not  followed  for  several 
years ;  but  recently  at  least  one  new  private  dormitory  has  been 
erected  every  year,  and  the  process  is  still  going  on.  Hundreds 
of  purveyors,  mechanics,  porters,  cooks,  waiters,  chambermaids, 
laundresses,  and  laborers  get  their  livelihood  from  the  univer- 
sity and  its  students. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  business  interests  of  Cambridge  which 
the  university  has  done  most  to  promote,  large  as  have  been  its 
contributions  direct  and  indirect  to  those  interests.  The  whole 
character  of  the  place  as  a  residence  has  been  strongly  affected 
by  the  presence  here  for  two  centuries  and  a  half  of  the  univer- 
sity teachers,  a  group  of  men  devoted,  not  to  trade  or  manufac- 
tures, or  money-making  of  any  sort,  but  to  the  arts  and  sciences, 


148  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

to  authorship  and  teaching,  and  in  general  to  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  elements  in  the  life  of  each  succeeding  generation. 
Cambridge  is  an  interesting  place  to  live  in,  because  the  poetry 
of  Holmes,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell  has  touched  with  the  light 
of  genius  some  of  its  streets,  houses,  churches,  and  graveyards, 
and  made  familiar  to  the  imagination  of  thousands  of  persons 
who  never  saw  them  its  river,  marshes,  and  bridges.     It  adds 
to  the  interest  of  living  in  any  place  that  famous  authors  have 
walked  in  its  streets,  and  loved  its  highways  and  byways,  and 
written  of  its  elms,  willows,  and  chestnuts,  its  robins  and  herons. 
The  very  names  of  Cambridge  streets  remind  the  dwellers  in  it 
of  the  biographies  of  Sparks,  the  sermons  of  Walker,  the  law- 
books of  Story,  the  orations  of  Everett,  and  the  presidencies  of 
Dunster,  Chauncy,  Willard,  Kirkland,  and  Quincy.    Cambridge 
is  associated  in  the  minds  of  thousands  of  Americans  with  sci- 
entific achievements  of  lasting  worth.    Here  lived  Dr.  Benjamin 
Waterhouse,  the  first  Hersey  professor  of   physic,  who  intro- 
duced the  kine-pox  into  America,  and  John  Winthrop,  HoUis 
professor  of  natural  philosophy  from  1738  to  1779,  one  of  the 
very  earliest  students  of   the  phenomena  of   earthquakes,  the 
friend  and  correspondent  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  the  man 
whose  lectures  Benjamin  Thompson  (Count  Rumford)  walked 
from  Woburn  to  hear.     For  two  generations  Asa  Gray  has 
turned  the  thoughts  of  innumerable  students  of  botany,  young 
and  old,  to  Cambridge  as  the  place  where   their  guide    into 
botanical  science  lived  and  wrote.     For  two  hundred  and  sixty 
years  the  lamp  of  philosophy  has  been  kept  burning  in  this 
quiet  town,  and  that  illumination  makes  it  a  brighter  place  to 
live  in  for  the  present  and  the  coming  generations.     Amid  the 
universal  struggles  to  get  a  livelihood,  to  make  money,  and  to 
keep  money,  here  is  a  place  where  hundreds  of  men  live  quite 
apart  from  that  common  quest.     Here  live  hundreds  of  men 
who,  having  secured  a  modest  but  sure  livelihood  for  themselves 
and  their  families,  work  in  the  main  without  thought  of  money, 
with  their  minds  bent  on  intellectual  pursuits,  and  kindled  by 
enthusiasms  which  have  nothing  material  as  their  end.     What 
a  cheerful  presence  in  the  city  is  the  ever-rising  tide  of  healthy, 
manly  youth,  full  of  hope,  ambition,  and  high-minded  purpose, 
making  ready  for  worthy  service  in  the  outer  world,  but  not  yet 
burdened  by  its  cares  and  griefs ! 

On  one  of  the  highest  knolls  of  Cambridge  stands  the  Astro- 


THE  INTEREST    OF    VISITORS.  149 

nomical  Observatory,  a  conspicuous  and  accurate  type,  in  spirit 
and  nature,  of  several  other  departments  of  the  university.  It 
is  constantly  at  work  trying  to  learn  more  truth  about  the  heav- 
enly bodies,  —  confident  that  the  truth  will  somehow  and  some- 
where prove  serviceable,  —  but  taking  no  account  of  immediate 
utilities.  From  the  top  of  the  Observatory  one  overlooks  the 
homes  and  working-places  of  as  comfortable  and  happy  a  popula- 
tion as  the  world  contains,  and  can  almost  hear  the  hum  of  their 
industries,  and  feel  the  throb  of  their  multitudinous  joys  and 
sorrows ;  yet  with  the  daily  cares  and  labors  of  that  population 
the  Observatory  has  nothing  to  do.  It  lives  a  life  apart,  devoted 
to  observation  and  study  of  sun,  moon,  and  planets,  of  comets 
and  meteors,  and  of  the  stars,  conscious  indeed  that  navigation 
and  time-keeping  depend  on  these  studies,  but  keeping  in  imme- 
diate view  only  the  instant  search  for  new  truth. 

It  is  natural  that  Cambridge  should  be  an  object  of  great 
interest  to  visitors  from  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  live  in  a  place  which  has  such  attractions.  Few 
educated  people  from  the  West  and  the  South  come  to  New  Eng- 
land without  visiting  this  city,  —  so  full  of  historical,  literary, 
and  scientific  associations.  The  summer  visitors  to  Boston  reg- 
ularly make  pilgrimages  to  the  College  Yard,  Memorial  Hall, 
the  Museum,  the  old  graveyard  between  the  two  churches,  the 
Washington  Elm,  Brattle  Street,  and  Elmwood  Avenue.  Many 
graduates  of  the  university,  whose  lives  are  spent  in  places 
remote  from  Cambridge,  return  thither  from  time  to  time  to 
refresh  their  recollections  and  to  watch  the  progress  of  improve- 
ments. As  a  rule  these  men  return  with  feelings  of  affection 
and  gratitude.  These  sentiments,  felt  by  thousands  of  men, 
ennoble  the  city  and  make  it  a  worthier  dwelling-place. 


HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 
By  BYRON  SATTERLEE  HURLBUT,  A.  M., 

BECOBDINO    SECBETABY   OF   HABVABD  UNTVEBSITY. 

In  the  office  of  the  President  of  Harvard  College,  in  Univer- 
sity Hall,  Cambridge,  there  hangs,  framed  in  a  narrow  band 
of  oak,  a  card,  perhaps  thirty  inches  long  and  twelve  wide. 
On  this  are  printed  these  inscriptions,  which  in  a  few  words  teU 
the  origin,  the  history,  and  the  purpose  of  Harvard :  — 


160  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

"  Harvard  University  is  a  chartered  and  endowed  institution  fos- 
tered by  the  state. 

"  The  Charter,  given  to  the  President  and  Fellows  in  1650,  is  still  in 
force  unaltered. 

*'  The  direct  grants  of  money  made  by  the  Legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts to  Harvard  College  between  1636  and  1785  amounted  to 
$116,000.  In  1814,  the  Legislature  granted  $10,000  a  year  for  ten 
years. 

"  Between  1638  and  1724  the  town  of  Cambridge  repeatedly  gave 
land  to  the  College. 

"  In  common  with  other  Massachusetts  institutions  of  education, 
religion,  and  charity,  the  University  enjoys  exemption  from  taxation 
on  its  personal  property,  and  on  real  estate  occupied  for  its  own  pur- 
poses. 

"  Beginning  with  John  Harvard  in  1638,  private  benefactors  have 
given  to  the  University  in  land,  buildings,  and  money  at  least 
$11,000,000. 

"  The  principal  objects  of  permanent  endowment  have  been  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

1.  Instruction  and  research. 

(a.  Professorships. 
b.  Observatories,  laboratories,  and  workshops.) 

2.  Collections.     (Libraries,  Museums,  Gardens,  and  Arboretum.) 

3.  Aid  for  Students.     (Scholarships,  Fellowships,  and  other  aids.) 

4.  Prizes.     (For  essays,  versions,  and  speaking.) 

5.  Publications.     (Annals,   Journals,   Memoirs,   Monographs,   and 

Bulletins.) 

6.  Administration.     (Salaries   in    administrative   offices,   libraries, 

and  collections.)  " 

Below  these  inscriptions  are  two  more,  one  speaking  of  John 
Harvard :  — 

"  John  Harvard  was  a  Master  of  Arts  of  Emmanuel  College,  Cam- 
bridge, England,  founded  by  Sir  Walter  Mildmay." 

The  second  is  a  quotation  from  Thomas  Fuller's  "  History  of 
the  University  of  Cambridge  "  (1655),  and  speaks  thus  of  Sir 
Walter  Mildmay :  — 

"  Coming  to  Court  after  he  had  founded  his  Colledge,  the  Queen  told 
him,  Sir  Walter,  I  hear  you  have  erected  a  Puritan  Foundation.  No, 
Madam,  saith  he,  farre  be  it  from  me  to  countenance  anything  con- 
trary to  your  established  Lawes,  but  I  have  set  an  Acorn,  which  when 
it  becomes  an  Oake,  God  alone  knows  what  will  be  the  fruit  thereof." 


THE  DEPARTMENTS.  151 

From  the  oak  which  Sir  Walter  planted  thus,  three  centuries 
ago,  sprang  Harvard  College,  the  oldest  institution  of  learning 
in  America. 

The  university  of  to-day  includes  the  college  of  the  older 
days,  and  eight  schools:  the  Graduate  School,  the  Lawrence 
Scientific  School,  the  School  of  Law,  of  Medicine,  of  Divinity, 
of  Dentistry,  of  Veterinary  Medicine,  and  that  of  Agriculture 
and  Hoi-ticulture,  in  which,  during  the  academic  year  1895-96, 
instruction  is  given  to  three  thousand  six  hundred  students  by 
three  hundred  and  sixty-six  teachers.  Moreover,  the  univer- 
sity is  not  idle  during  the  long  vacation ;  for  six  weeks  the 
Summer  School  is  in  session.  In  1895  the  students  in  this 
school  numbered  five  hundred  and  seventy-five.  Thus,  in  a  sin- 
gle year,  the  university  has  given  instruction  to  more  than  four 
thousand  students. 

In  matters  of  administration  three  of  the  departments  of  the 
university  are  closely  united :  Harvard  College,  the  Lawrence 
Scientific  School,  and  the  Graduate  School  are  under  the  charge 
of  the  Faculty  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  which,  however,  delegates 
to  an  administrative  board,  appointed  for  each,  minor  questions 
of  government  and  administration.  To  the  students  under  its 
control  this  Faculty  offers  four  hundred  and  thirty-seven  courses 
of  instruction,  divided  among  the  following  subjects :  Semitic 
Languages  and  History ;  ludo  -  Iranian  Languages  ;  Greek ; 
Latin  ;  English  ;  German  ;  French ;  Italian  ;  Spanish  ;  Ro- 
mance Philology  ;  Comparative  Literature ;  Philosophy ;  His- 
tory ;  Government ;  Economics  ;  Fine  Arts ;  Architecture  ; 
Music  ;  Mathematics  ;  Engineering ;  Physics  ;  Chemistry  ;  Bot- 
any ;  Zoology  ;  Geology  ;  Mineralogy  and  Petrography ;  Amer- 
ican Archaeology  and  Ethnology;  Anatomy,  Physiology,  and 
Physical  Training ;  and  Military  Science. 

Harvard  College,  from  which  the  university  has  grown,  is  the 
oldest  and  largest  of  the  departments  of  the  institution.  Its 
standard  of  admission  and  its  requirements  for  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts  are  higher  than  those  of  any  other  Amer- 
ican college  or  university.  The  requirements  for  admission, 
however,  are  not  rigid,  for  a  student  may  be  admitted  on  any 
one  of  four  plans  of  study.  Within  the  college  still  greater 
freedom  awaits  him  ;  once  a  member  of  the  university  he  may 
with  hardly  a  single  restriction  choose  his  own  course,  select- 
ing those  studies  which  inclination,  his  natural  aptitude,  or  his 


152  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 

future  occupation  points  out  as  best  fitted  to  equip  him  for  the 
world.  He  is  not,  however,  left  to  select  his  courses  heedlessly. 
As  a  Freshman  he  must  secure  for  his  plan  of  study  for  the 
year  the  approval  of  an  instructor,  who  is  appointed  to  act  as  his 
adviser,  and  although  as  a  Sophomore  he  is  free  to  choose  for 
himself,  he  nevertheless  is  encouraged  to  seek  the  advice  of  his 
instructors,  that  he  may  make  the  best  use  of  his  freedom.  To 
secure  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  he  must  have  passed  with 
at  least  a  certain  prescribed  rank  in  eighteen  courses  of  study, 
two  of  which  are  prescribed  courses  in  English,  and  he  must 
have  some  knowledge  of  both  German  and  French,  if  he  had  it 
not  when  he  entered  college.  Except  for  these  restrictions  his 
course  is  what  he  himself  determines ;  he  is  what  he  elects  to 
be.  Neither  is  the  period  of  residence  at  the  college  abso- 
lutely fixed ;  the  usual  term  of  residence  for  the  degree  is  four 
years,  but  students  from  other  colleges  are  admitted  to  advanced 
standing,  and  those  who  in  three  years  complete  with  distinc- 
tion the  required  number  of  courses  are,  upon  the  recommenda- 
tion of  a  committee  of  the  Faculty,  allowed  to  graduate  at  the 
end  of  that  period. 

This,  then,  is  the  framework,  the  fleshless  skeleton,  of  a  stu- 
dent's career  at  Harvard  College.  This  is  his  education  in 
books.  Beyond  this,  equal  in  value,  there  is  the  education 
that  he  gains  from  intercourse  with  his  fellow-students,  in  ex- 
ercise, and  athletic  sports,  in  social  and  dining  clubs,  .in  soci- 
eties founded  in  a  common  interest  in  study,  or  religion,  or  a 
desire  to  help  his  fellow-men  less  fortunate  than  himself,  the 
avocations  which  make  him  a  well-rounded  man,  fully  developed 
in  body  and  mind  and  spirit,  —  without  which  his  mere  study 
of  books  might  leave  him  dwarfed  and  narrow-soided. 

Side  by  side  the  college  student  and  the  student  of  the  Sci- 
entific School  do  much  of  their  work.  The  latter,  it  is  true,  is 
receiving  a  professional  training,  but  with  it  he  gains,  uncon- 
sciously, perhaps,  more  liberal  views  of  life,  a  more  cultured 
spirit,  more  of  the  "humanities,"  than  does  he  who  is  trained  in 
an  isolated  professional  school.  The  advantage,  however,  is  not 
his  alone ;  his  example  of  steady  aim  and  fixed  purpose  helps 
his  college  fellow  to  shape  his  own  life  to  a  definite  end.  Thus 
it  is  that  the  close  union  of  Harvard  College  and  the  Lawrence 
Scientific  School  is  peculiarly  fortunate ;  each  reacts  helpfully 
upon  the  other. 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  AND  GRADUATE'  SCHOOLS.      153 

Never  in  its  history  has  the  Scientific  School  been  as  pros- 
perous as  it  is  to-day.  In  a  decade  the  number  of  its  students 
has  swelled  from  twenty-two  to  three  hundred  and  forty,  an 
increase  brought  about  largely  by  the  great  development  of 
its  field  of  instruction,  and  the  systematic  arrangement  of  its 
courses.  The  school  offers  eleven  courses  of  study,  —  Civil  and 
Topographical  Engineering,  Electrical  Engineering,  Mechan- 
ical Engineering,  Mining  Engineering,  Architecture,  Chemistry, 
Geology,  Botany  and  Zoology,  General  Science,  Science  for 
Teachers,  and  Anatomy,  Physiology,  and  Physical  Training. 
On  the  completion  of  any  one  of  these  courses  with  at  least  a 
certain  rank,  a  student  is  awarded  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Science.  The  usual  term  of  residence  and  study  for  the  degree 
is  four  years,  but  here,  as  in  the  college,  students  are  admitted 
to  advanced  standing  either  upon  examination  or  satisfactory 
evidence  of  work  done  at  other  schools.  The  requirements  for 
admission  kre  not  so  severe  as  are  those  for  admission  to  Har- 
vard College ;  the  standard  of  work,  however,  is  high,  and  de- 
mands most  faithful  study.  In  this  respect,  the  Faculty  of  Arts 
and  Sciences  makes  no  distinction  between  the  college  student 
and  the  scientific :  both  are  subject  to  the  same  laws.  So,  too, 
in  the  undergraduate  world  itself  no  lines  are  drawTi ;  in  soci- 
eties, in  athletics,  in  all  the  affairs  of  student  life,  members  of 
the  two  departments  are  on  an  equal  footing. 

The.  Graduate  School,  which  numbers  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  resident  and  sixteen  non-resident  students,  offers  to  gradu- 
ates of  colleges  and  like  institutions  of  learning  opportunities 
to  carry  on  advanced  study  in  the  various  departments  of  in- 
struction under  the  charge  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts  and  Sciences. 
The  growth  of  this  school  has  been  so  gradual  and  so  quiet  that 
some  have  failed  to  realize  how  important  a  part  of  the  univer- 
sity it  has  become.  It  stands  to-day  for  the  higher  education, 
for  the  deepest  and  broadest  learning.  To  it  come  serious  men 
who  love  knowledge  and  the  increase  of  knowledge,  men  who 
have  dedicated  themselves  to  learning.  The  greater  part  of 
this  body  of  students  go  out  from  the  school  to  teach,  —  they 
are  scattered  in  all  parts  of  the  country ;  and  in  this  fact  one 
may  see  how  much  the  Graduate  School  does  to  strengthen  the 
influence  of  the  university,  to  aid  the  cause  of  higher  education. 
Year  by  year  the  school  grows,  its  influence  ever  broadening ; 
every  year  the  number  of  colleges  sending  students  to  it  in- 


164  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

creases.  This  present  year  it  numbers  among  its  students  grad- 
uates of  a  hundred  different  colleges  and  higher  institutions  of 
learning. 

For  admission  to  the  school  a  candidate  must  give  satisfac- 
tory evidence  of  scholarship.  Once  admitted,  he  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  candidate  for  a  degree ;  this  depends  upon  other  consid- 
erations. The  degrees  for  which  he  may  become  a  candidate 
are  those  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  Master  of  Arts,  Doctor  of  Philo- 
sophy, and  Doctor  of  Science. 

For  admission  to  the  Divinity  School  a  candidate  "  must  furnish 
testimonials  of  character  and  scholarship,"  and  to  be  a  candidate 
for  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Divinity  he  "  must  have  received 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  representing  a  course  of  study 
approved  by  the  Faculty."  If  he  has  not  this  degree,  he  must 
satisfy  the  Faculty  that  his  "  education  has  been  equal  to  that  of 
graduates  of  the  best  New  England  college."  In  this, as  in  the 
other  schools,  men  are  admitted  to  advanced  standing,  and  they 
may  also  enter  the  school  as  special  students.  To  obtain  the 
degree  of  Bachelor  of  Divinity  a  student  must  be  properly  qual- 
ified, and  must  have  been  "  connected  with  the  school  for  not 
less  than  one  year,  and  have  passed  satisfactorily  examinations  " 
on  JA  prescribed  amount  of  work.  In  addition  to  conferences 
and  general  exercises,  such  as  preaching  and  the  conducting  of 
morning  and  evening  prayers,  the  school  requires  that  a  student 
shall  pursue  a  certain  number  of  courses  of  study  chosen  from 
among  the  following  subjects,  —  Old  Testament,  New  Testa- 
ment, Church  History,  Compai*ative  Religion,  Ethics,  Sociol- 
ogy, Theology,  and  Homiletics  and  Pastoral  Care.  Instruction 
in  Elocution  is  also  given.  The  instruction  in  the  school  is  non- 
sectarian  ;  the  eleven  officers  and  teachers  on  its  staff,  repre- 
senting various  denominations,  unite  in  encouraging  an  unfet- 
tered search  for  truth. 

In  1882  a  generous  benefactor  gave  to  the  university  for  its 
Law  School  a  new  hall,  which,  it  was  calculated,  would  accom- 
modate the  growth  of  the  school  for  half  a  century.  In  a  sin- 
gle decade  the  school  has  outgrown  this  building ;  in  1896  the 
students  number  four  hundred  and  sixty -five.  This  rapid 
growth  and  the  great  prosperity  of  the  present  are  in  large 
measure  due  to  the  method  of  instruction  pursued  in  the  school, 
the  so-called  "  Case  System,"  in  which  students,  instead  of 
committing  to  memory  textbooks,  study  actual  cases,  and  from 


THE  LAW  SCHOOL.  165 

these  deduce  the  principles  of  law ;  a  system,  which,  adopted 
first  at  Harvard,  has  revolutionized  the  study  of  the  law.  "  The 
design  of  this  school,"  the  catalogue  of  the  university  says,  "is 
to  afford  such  a  training  in  the  fundamental  principles  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  law  as  will  constitute  the  best  preparation 
for  the  practice  of  the  profession  in  any  place  where  this  system 
prevails."  To  this  end,  therefore,  a  student  is  not  drilled  in 
the  peculiar  law  of  any  one  State,  but  in  the  general  principles 
of  law,  a  training  which  best  fits  him  to  understand  the  living 
law,  and  thus  enables  him  better  to  adjust  himself  to  the  details 
of  the  law  in  that  State  in  which  he  may  chance  to  be.  The 
study  of  details  of  law  in  particular  States  is  ancillary  to  that 
of  general  principles. 

The  Faculty  of  the  school  offers  courses  in  Contracts,  Crim- 
inal Law  and  Procedure,  Property,  Torts,  Civil  Procedure  at 
Common  Law,  Agency,  Bills  of  Exchange  and  Promissory 
Notes,  Carriers,  Contracts  and  Quasi-Contracts,  Evidence,  In- 
surance, Jurisdiction  and  Procedure  in  Equity,  Law  of  Persons, 
Interpretation  of  Statutes,  Sales  of  Personal  Property,  Trusts, 
Damages,  Constitutional  Law,  Corporations,  Partnership,  Sure- 
tyship, and  Conflict  of  Laws.  Extra  courses  are  also  provided, 
—  the  Peculiarities  of  Massachusetts  Law  and  Practice,  and 
Civil  Procedure  under  the  New  York  Code.  Furthermore, 
"  every  student  who  has  been  in  the  school  one  year  or  more 
has  an  opportunity  each  year  of  arguing  in  a  moot  court  case 
before  one  of  the  professors ;  "  additional  practice  may  also  be 
gained  in  the  law  clubs. 

Upon  graduates  of  the  school  is  conferred  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Laws,  for  which  the  usual  term  of  residence  is 
three  years.  For  admission  to  regular  standing  in  the  school 
a  candidate  must  be  the  holder  of  an  academic  degree  in  Arts, 
Literature,  Philosophy,  or  Science,  of  a  reputable  college  or 
university,  or  a  person  qualified  to  enter  the  Senior  Class  of 
Harvard  College.  Such  candidates  are  admitted  without  ex- 
amination. The  list  of  colleges,  which  at  present  includes  one 
hundred  and  thirty-five,  whose  graduates  are  entitled  to  ad- 
mission, is  made  up  from  the  "  colleges  whose  graduates  have 
entered  the  school  in  recent  years.  It  is  accordingly  not  in- 
tended to  be  exhaustive,  and  will  doubtless  be  enlarged  from 
time  to  time."  Candidates  who  do  not  meet  the  requirements 
for  regular  standing  may  upon  evidence  of  work  done,  or  upon 


156  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

examination,  be  admitted  as  special  students,  and  upon  obtain- 
ing a  certain  prescribed  rank  may  receive  the  degree  of  Bach- 
elor of  Laws.  Students  are  also  admitted  to  advanced  stand- 
ing, and  opportunities  for  advanced  study  are  given  to  grad- 
uates. 

For  admission  to  the  Medical  School  candidates  must  pass 
examinations  in  certain  prescribed  subjects,  but  those  who  pre- 
sent a  "  degree  in  Letters,  Science,  or  Medicine  are  exempt " 
from  all  examinations  except  that  in  chemistry.  The  examina- 
tions for  admission  to  this  school  are  not  as  severe  as  those  for 
admission  to  Harvard  College  ;  but  in  medicine,  as  in  law,  those 
who  have  had  a  college  training  have  distinct  advantages  over 
those  not  thus  equipped.  The  students  in  the  school  number 
five  hundred  and  thirty-one  ;  the  teachers,  sixty-five. 

The  following  courses  of  instruction  are  offered :  Anatomy, 
Histology  and  Embryology,  Bacteriology,  Physiology,  Chemis- 
try, Hygiene,  Therapeutics  and  Materia  Medica,  Pathology  and 
Pathological  Anatomy,  Surgery,  Orthopedic  Surgery,  Clinical 
Surgery,  Dermatology,  Theory  and  Practice  of  Physic,  Clinical 
Medicine,  Neurology,  Psychiatry,  Pediatrics,  Obstetrics,  Gynae- 
cology, Ovarian  Tumors,  Syphilis,  Ophthalmology,  Otology,  Dis- 
eases of  the  Throat  and  Nose,  Diseases  of  the  Genito-Urinary 
Apparatus,  Legal  Medicine,  Municipal  Sanitation,  Clinical  Mi- 
croscopy, Cookery,  and  Orthopedics.  Instruction  is  given  not 
by  lectures  only,  but  by  an  abundance  of  practical  exercises 
under  the  supervision  of  instructors,  with  the  design  that  a  stu- 
dent shall  learn  to  rely  upon  himself ;  that  his  knowledge  shall 
not  be  merely  theoretical.  Furthermore,  the  students  secure  in 
the  hospitals  of  Boston  those  especial  advantages  for  study  and 
observation  which  are  found  in  large  cities  only.  A  student 
who  satisfactorily  completes  the  required  course  of  study  is 
awarded  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine.  The  usual  term  of 
residence  for  the  degree  is  four  years,  but  students  are,  upon 
satisfactory  evidence,  admitted  to  advanced  standing.  Oppor- 
tunities for  research  and  for  advanced  study  are  offered  to 
graduate  students. 

For  admission  to  the  Dental  School  the  requirements  are 
akin  to  those  for  admission  to  the  Medical  School.  The  meth- 
ods of  instruction,  too,  in  the  two  schools  are  similar.  To  the 
student  of  dentistry  the  following  courses  are  offered :  Anatomy, 
Physiology,  Chemistry,  Histology  and  Embryology,  Bacterid- 


VETERINARY  MEDICINE,  AND  AGRICULTURE.     157 

ogy,  Operative  Dentistry,  Mechanical  Dentistry,  Surgery,  Oper- 
ative Surgery,  Dental  Pathology,  Oral  Anatomy  and  Physiology, 
Surgical  Pathology,  Materia  Medica,  Orthodontia,  Neurology, 
and  Crown  and  Bridge  Work.  The  degree  conferred  upon 
graduates  of  the  school  is  that  of  Doctor  of  Dental  Medicine. 
The  number  of  students  in  the  school  in  1896  is  one  hundred 
and  two.  The  Faculty  and  other  instructors  number  thirty- 
nine. 

The  School  of  Veterinary  Medicine,  which,  like  the  Dental 
and  the  Medical  schools,  is  established  in  Boston,  has  fifty-five 
students  and  a  staff  of  twenty-two  teachers  and  ofiicers.  It 
offers  instruction  in  Anatomy,  Physiology,  Chemistry,  Botany, 
Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics,  Pathology  and  Pathological 
Anatomy,  Surgery,  Ophthalmology,  Parasitic  Diseases,  Theory 
and  Practice,  Obstetrics,  Warranty  and  Evidence,  Meat  Inspec- 
tion, and  Clinical  Veterinary  Medicine  and  Surgery.  Here,  as 
in  the  other  schools  of  medicine,  especial  attention  is  given  to 
practical  instruction.  The  degree  which  is  conferred  upon  stu- 
dents who  satisfactorily  complete  the  course  of  study  is  that 
of  Doctor  of  Veterinary  Medicine  ;  the  usual  term  of  residence 
and  study  is  three  years.  Students  are  admitted  to  the  school 
upon  the  presentation  of  certificates  of  admission  to  recognized 
colleges  or  scientific  schools,  or  upon  examination. 

The  Bussey  Institution,  a  school  of  Agriculture  and  Horticul- 
ture, is  established  at  Jamaica  Plain.  It  gives  "  systematic 
instruction  in  Agriculture,  and  in  Useful  and  Ornamental  Gar- 
dening. ...  It  is,  in  general,  meant  for  young  men  who  intend 
to  become  farmers,  gardeners,  florists,  or  landscape  gardeners ; 
as  well  as  for  those  who  will  naturally  be  called  upon  to  man- 
age large  estates,  or  who  wish  to  qualify  themselves  to  be 
overseers  or  superintendents  of  farms,  country  seats,  or  public 
institutions."  Instruction  is  given  in  the  Theory  and  Practice 
of  Farming,  Horticulture,  Agricultural  Chemistry,  and  Rural 
Hygiene,  by  a  staff  of  seven  instructors.  The  students  in  the 
school  number  fifteen.  The  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Agricultural 
Science  is  conferred  upon  graduates. 

Within  late  years  there  has  grown  up  at  the  university 
another  department,  the  value  of  whose  far-reaching  influence  it 
would  be  difficult  to  overestimate.  This  is  the  Summer  School. 
The  students  in  this  school  are  chiefly  teachers  drawn  hither 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  from  Maine  to  California,  from 


158  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

Minnesota  to  Texas,  to  enjoy  the  advantages  that  the  univer- 
sity offers  in  its  libraries  and  museums,  to  receive  instruction, 
and  to  learn  Harvard  methods  of  teaching.  From  the  incep- 
tion of  the  school  the  number  of  its  students  has  steadily 
grown,  until  in  1895  five  hundred  and  seventy-five  were  regis- 
tered. For  the  summer  of  1896  the  school  offers  at  Harvard 
College  and  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School  courses  in  English, 
German,  French,  Mathematics,  Engineering,  Physics,  Chemis- 
try, Geology,  General  American  History,  Education  and  Teach- 
ing, Freehand  Drawing,  Botany,  Physiology  and  Hygiene  for 
Teachers,  Physical  Training,  and  Latin,  and  also  courses  at  the 
Medical  School  and  the  Dental  School. 

To  foster  the  physical  and  the  intellectual  development  of 
the  students  Harvard  provides  ample  foundations  which  here 
can  only  be  mentioned :  the  Gymnasium,  the  Carey  Building, 
the  University  Boat  House,  the  Weld  Boat  Club,  Holmes  Field, 
Jarvis  Field,  and  the  Soldier's  Field ;  the  College  Library,  and 
thirty-four  school,  departmental,  laboratory,  and  class-room  libra- 
ries, possessing  466,410  volumes,  and  a  collection  of  pamphlets 
and  maps  estimated  to  be  equal  in  number ;  the  Chemical  Labo- 
ratory ;  the  Jefferson  Physical  Laboratory ;  the  University  Mu- 
seum, consisting  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  with 
its  laboratories  of  Zoology,  Palaeontology,  Entomology,  Geol- 
ogy, Petrography,  and  Physical  Geography ;  the  Botanical 
Museum,  with  laboratories  of  Cryptogamic  and  Phanerogamic 
Botany  ;  the  Mineralogical  Museum  and  laboratories  ;  and  the 
Peabody  Museum  of  American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology ; 
the  Semitic  Museum ;  the  Botanic  Garden  and  Herbarium ; 
the  Astronomical  Observatory  ;  and  the  Arnold  Arboretum. 

The  religious  life  of  the  university  finds  its  centre  in  the 
services  of  the  Chapel,  and  its  guiding  influence  in  the  board 
of  university  preachers,  each  of  whom,  during  his  term  of  resi- 
dence, not  only  conducts  the  public  religious  services,  but  also 
stands  ready  to  aid  any  student  who  may  seek  him.  From  this 
centre  radiates  the  religious  life  of  the  university,  which  finds 
expression  in  the  religious  societies  and  the  little  bands  organ- 
ized to  work  among  the  poor  and  the  unfortunate. 

To  provide  for  the  maintenance  of  the  university,  men  have 
given  of  their  store,  small  or  great,  for  more  than  two  centu- 
ries and  a  half.  In  the  days  of  poverty  and  struggle,  when 
money  was  scarce  in  the  colony,  they  gave  of  the  produce  of 


"HARVARD  INDIFFERENCE."  159 

their  land  in  proportion  to  that  which  God  had  given  them. 
With  the  increase  of  prosperity,  they  have  given  not  more  liber- 
ally but  more  largely,  until,  to-day,  the  value  of  the  possessions 
of  the  university  in  land,  buildings,  and  money  amounts  to  fully 
thirteen  millions  of  dollars.  Of  this  more  than  eight  millions 
represent  what  may  be  called  "  quick  capital ;  "  five  millions 
are  invested  in  lands,  buildings,  and  collections  used  for  uni- 
versity purposes.  The  lands  owned  and  occupied  by  the  univer- 
sity, the  College  Yard  and  the  adjoining  fields,  the  Soldier's 
Field,  the  Gardens,  the  Observatory  grounds,  the  Arboretum, 
the  Bussey  lands  and  other  lands  in  Cambridge,  Boston,  and 
neighboring  towns,  amoimt  to  nearly  seven  hundred  acres. 
The  buildings  owned  by  the  university  and  occupied  for  its 
purposes  are  more  than  sixty :  of  the  principal  buildings  fif- 
teen are  dormitories ;  thirty-five  are  variously  used  as  lecture- 
rooms,  offices,  observatories,  laboratories,  museums,  libraries, 
dining-halls,  and  buildings  devoted  to  athletic  purposes.  From 
its  invested  funds,  tuition-fees,  rents,  and  other  sources  of  in- 
come, the  university  received,  in  1894-95,  one  million  eighty- 
four  thousand  and  ninety  dollars,  of  which  fully  ninety  thou- 
sand dollars  was  awarded  to  meritorious  students  in  the  form 
of  scholarships,  fellowships,  and  various  other  aids. 

Such  is  the  outward,  the  physical  Harvard.  More  impor- 
tant, however,  than  the  outward  showing  of  a  college  is  the  spirit 
which  animates  its  students.  Unthinking  men  have  long  mis- 
understood the  spirit  of  Harvard,  perhaps  because  at  Cambridge 
men  do  not  talk  much  of  spirit ;  they  know  that  talk  means 
little  in  the  struggle  of  life,  that  action  counts.  Even  gradu- 
ates of  the  university  fail  to  realize  how  strong  this  spirit  is  in 
the  college  world. 

From  the  world  outside  there  comes  a  cry  that  Harvard  is 
indifferent,  —  yet  nothing  is  falser ;  men  do  not  rightly  judge 
the  attitude  of  the  college.  From  its  foundation  Harvard  has 
stood  for  the  cultivation  of  the  individual,  and  those  who  do 
not  think  say  this  is  selfishness.  It  is  its  opposite.  Harvard 
individualism  means  that  every  man  shall  develop  what  is  best 
in  him,  that  thus  he  may  fit  himself  to  serve  his  fellows. 
Toward  this  ideal  the  university  has  struggled  for  two  centuries 
and  a  half,  and  in  these  later  years,  with  the  rapid  development 
of  the  elective  system,  by  which  each  man  has  fitted  his  studies 
to  his  needs,  the  university  has  come  nearer  to  it.     To  one  who 


160  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY. 

knows  Harvard  there  is  something  almost  ludicrous,  were  it  not 
for  the  sorrowful  thought  that  the  university  is  so  misunder- 
stood, in  the  cry  of  Harvard  indifference.  Because  schoolboy 
ideals  and  codes  are  fast  disappearing,  because  men  will  not  be 
driven  in  a  body,  because  a  man  thinks  that  above  all  he  should 
seek  to  make  best  use  of  those  powers  God  has  given  him. 
Harvard  is  indifferent.  If  this  be  indifference,  the  charge  is 
true  ;  but  it  is  indifference  of  this  sort  that  has  moved  the  world. 

There  is,  however,  at  Harvard,  indifference  to  some  things 
that  older  men  prize.  Nowhere  is  there  a  more  democratic  com- 
munity. Wealth  and  lineage  unsupported  by  genuine  merit 
lack  the  power  they  possess  in  the  world  outside :  a  man  counts 
for  what  he  is,  be  he  student  or  instructor ;  and  this  very  state 
of  things  has  done  away  with  the  old  relationship  between  the 
two :  student  and  instructor  are  no  longer  at  war,  —  they  are 
working  together  toward  a  common  goal. 

Perhaps,  too,  the  world  has  talked  of  indifference  because  the 
Harvard  man  says  little  of  the  things  he  cares  for  most.  He 
wears  neither  a  "  society  pin  "  upon  his  waistcoat,  nor  his  heart 
upon  his  sleeve.  He  is  silent  about  the  good  deeds  that  he 
does ;  yet  week  after  week  he  goes  to  a  "  Boys'  Club  "  in  some 
wretched  district  of  Boston  ;  or  he  gathers  about  him  the  little 
band  that  centres  round  a  "  Home  Library ;  "  there  is  a  sailors' 
mission  where  Harvard  students  may  be  found  Sundays,  and  a 
"Prospect  Union,"  where  men  who  have  toiled  all  day  meet 
at  night  to  study,  and  Harvard  students  are  their  teachers. 
They  devote  time  and  strength  to  these,  but  they  say  nothing. 
Silently  the  rich  have  given  of  their  abundance  to  their  class- 
mates, who,  in  the  struggle  for  an  education,  have  had  also 
to  win  their  bread.  Many  a  man,  almost  despairing  in  the 
struggle,  has  taken  heart  at  a  gift  that  came  he  knew  not 
whence.  "  I  must  do  this,  at  least,"  the  giver  says,  "  but  my 
name  must  not  be  known."  And  many  a  poor  man  has  helped 
his  fellow  poorer  than  himself.  For  these  things  those  who 
know  and  love  Harvard  believe  in  her  —  for  these  things  that  the 
world  knows  not  of.  Nor  does  it  see,  perhaps  because  it  does 
not  care  to  look,  the  strong  current  of  honest,  clean  right-living, 
the  search  for  truth,  the  endeavor  to  develop  all  the  powers  that 
God  has  given,  these  things  that  are  the  true  spirit  of  Harvard. 

He  who  pauses  before  the  entrance  gate  of  the  college  may 
see  above  the   central   portal,  wrought  in  the   iron  work,  the 


RELIGIOUS  LIFE.  161 

Cross,  and  upon  the  right-hand  pillar  the  seal  of  the  coUege  with 
Veritas  inscribed  upon  the  open  books.  Carved  upon  the  wall 
at  his  right  hand  are  words  written  twp  centuries  ago :  — 

AFTER  GOD  HAD  CARRIED  US  SAFE  TO  NEW  ENGLAND 

AND  WEE  HAD  BULLDED  OUR  HOUSES 

PROVIDED  NECESSARIES  FOR  OUR  LIVELI  HOOD 

REARD  CONVENIENT  PLACES  FOR  GODS  WORSHIP 

AND  8ETLED  THE  CIVILL  GOVERNMENT 

ONE  OF  THE  NEXT  THINGS  WE  LONGED  FOR 

AND  LOOKED  AFTER  WAS  TO  ADVANCE  LEARNING 

AND  PERPETUATE  IT  TO  POSTERITY 

DREADING  TO  LEAVE  AN  ILLITERATE  MINI8TERY 

TO  THE  CHURCHES  WHEN  OUR  PRESENT  MINISTERS 

SHALL  LIE  IN  THE  DUST 

Here  the  colonists  founded  their  college,  and  across  its  shield 
they  wrote  Veritas.  Harvard  has  been  true  to  her  inheritance. 
Still  she  teaches  her  sons  to  seek  for  truth  as  she  sends  them 
forth  to  a  ministry  wider  far  than  that  of  which  the  fathers 
dreamed,  for  which  they  hoped  and  prayed. 


CHAPEL  AT  HARVARD. 
By  the  right  REV.  WILLIAM  LAWRENCE, 

BISHOP   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

One  cannot  consider  the  movements  of  the  religious  life  of 
Harvard  apart  from  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  uni- 
versity from  a  college. 

Thirty  years  ago  Harvard  was  a  college.  The  whole  system 
of  discipline  was  adapted  to  youth  and  immaturity  of  character. 
The  student  was  under  the  eye  of  the  college  every  hour  of  the 
day  and  night ;  his  courses  of  study  were  marked  out  for  him, 
lessons  from  the  textbooks  were  given  from  day  to  day.  He 
was  under  tutelage.  In  harmony  with  this  system  he  was  re- 
quired to  go  to  daily  prayers  and  to  Sunday  worship.  To  be 
sure  there  was  an  occasional  protest  that  religion  stood  on  a 
different  footing  from  studies.  But  the  answer  was  reasonable 
that  in  the  development  of  the  boy,  religion  had  its  place  with 
study,  and  why  should  it  not  be  under  the  same  rules  ? 

Thus  at  an  early  hour  every  morning  the  college  bell,  under 
the  faithful  charge  of  "  Old  Jones  "  as  he  was  affectionately 
called,  caused  several  hundred  young  men  to  leap  from  a  deeji 


162  CHAPEL  AT  HARVARD. 

sleep  into  their  clothes  and  make  their  hurried  way  along  the 
muddy  paths  and  around  the  puddles  of  the  yard  to  the  chapel. 
The  whole  college  could  then  be  accommodated  in  the  chapel, 
though  at  that  time  it  had  no  side  galleries.  It  was  popularly 
supposed  that  Jones  was  not  as  faithful  at  the  furnace  as  he 
was  at  the  bell ;  but  perhaps  the  fault  was  with  the  furnace. 
With  upturned  coat-collars,  the  students  watched  good  old  Dr. 
Peabody  remove  his  spectacles  to  read  the  Scriptures  and  then 
replace  them  to  offer  prayer  ;  they  then  joined  heartily  in  one 
of  the  familiar  hymns  and  after  the  benediction  broke  away  for 
breakfast. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  in  these  latter  days  to  speak  of  the 
prayers  of  early  times  as  worse  than  useless,  and  to  emphasize 
the  irreverence  of  students  compelled  to  pray.  While  there 
was  irreverence  sometimes,  and  though  the  Doctor  was  occa- 
sionally warned  by  a  knocking  on  the  pews  if  he  prayed  too 
long,  yet  the  great  body  of  the  young  men  were  reverent,  and 
many  of  them  entered  devoutly  into  the  service.  Two  things 
at  least  were  impressive  and  affected  the  lives  of  the  students, 
—  the  daily  contact  with  the  simple  and  pure  character  of  Dr. 
Peabody  and  the  hearty  singing  of  the  closing  hymn. 

With  the  development  of  the  elective  system  under  President 
Eliot,  the  larger  freedom  in  discipline  and  the  greater  maturity 
of  the  students,  the  old  religious  system  gradually  became  dis- 
cordant with  the  prevailing  note  of  college  life. 

Religious  institutions  are  conservative.  It  was  natural  there- 
fore that  the  proposition  of  a  new  method  should  make  its  way 
slowly  into  the  confidence  of  the  officers  of  the  college  and  of 
the  community. 

Formerly  studies,  recitations,  and  prayers  had  been  consid- 
ered as  duties.  Under  the  new  regime,  elective  studies  and 
lectures  were  lifted  to  the  plane  of  privileges,  —  why  not 
prayers  as  well? 

Gradually  the  responsibility  as  to  the  attendance  of  the  stu- 
dents at  Sunday  worship  was  removed  from  the  college  to  the 
parents,  and  then  to  the  students  themselves.  The  last  thing  that 
Harvard  wanted  to  do  was  to  weaken  the  forces  of  religion  in  the 
university.  The  problem  was  how,  under  the  new  conditions, 
religion  and  spiritual  influences  could  be  made  more  effective. 

The  first  step  was  to  dignify  worship  and  daily  prayer,  by 
making  them  not  a   matter  of   compulsion  but    of   privilege. 


CAMBRIDGE   THE  GAINER.  163 

That  they  should  be  so  considered  by  the  students,  great  pains 
were  taken  to  make  them  more  attractive.  A  fine  choir  of  men 
and  boys  and  a  more  congregational  form  of  worship  were  fea- 
tures in  the  movement.  But  the  great  step  that  the  university 
made  was  in  calling  to  her  service  some  of  the  strongest  men  in 
the  ministry,  who  were  led  to  devote  a  few  weeks  in  each  year 
to  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  students. 

Before  this  plan  had  been  matured  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  had 
been  invited  to  be  the  chaplain  of  the  imiversity.  He  declined, 
fortunately  ;  for  the  larger  and  more  effective  plan,  by  which  he 
with  others  could  place  some  of  their  life  at  the  service  of  the 
college,  was  now  developed.  In  this  he  was  always  a  most  in- 
terested and  sympathetic  adviser  of  the  president,  whose  object 
was  to  make  the  Christian  religion  a  dignified,  natural,  and 
effective  force  in  the  new  life  of  the  university.  The  influence 
which  he  brought  to  bear  in  favor  of  the  new  plan  was  most 
potent  in  causing  its  adoption. 

An  adaptation  of  the  English  cathedral  system  of  canons 
in  residence  was  devised.  Six  preachers  to  the  imiversity  were 
appointed,  one  of  them.  Professor  F.  G.  Peabody,  being  a  per- 
manent teacher.  During  the  thirty-six  weeks  of  term-time  each 
preacher  became  responsible  for  the  services  and  prayers  for 
six  weeks. 

The  practical  result  is  this.  At  a  quarter  before  nine  every 
morning  a  body  of  students  who  wish  to  open  the  day  with 
common  prayer  in  company  with  their  fellows  meet  in  Apple- 
ton  Chapel,  and  the  preacher  in  residence  leads  them  in  prayer. 
He  also  conducts  the  Sunday  evening  services,  when  the  con- 
gregation fills  the  chapel,  as  is  also  the  case  at  the  Thurs- 
day afternoon  vesper  services.  Every  morning  in  the  term 
a  preacher  is  at  Wadsworth  House  to  receive  and  help  with 
counsel  the  many  students  who  call. 

The  students  have  responded  to  the  responsibility  laid  upon 
them,  and  the  religious  and  charitable  societies  of  the  college 
have  taken  on  new  life. 

The  city  of  Cambridge  has  been  a  gainer,  for  from  this  new 
movement  has  sprung  the  Prospect  Union,  and  the  ministers  in 
Cambridge  feel  a  satisfaction  in  preaching  to  young  men  in  the 
parish  churches  who  come  to  church  on  Sunday  mornings  not 
under  the  compulsion  of  a  collegiate  discipline  but  from  a  de- 
sire on  their  own  part  to  worship. 


PHYSICAL   TRAINING. 

By  DUDLEY  A.   SARGENT,  M.  D., 

DIRECTOR   OF   THE    HEMENWAY   GYMNASIUM. 

In  reviewing  the  material  growth  and  prosperity  of  a  city  it 
is  well  to  consider  some  of  the  factors  that  have  contributed  to 
its  renown  in  the  best  sense.  Although  an  aggregation  of  houses 
and  buildings  inhabited  by  a  few  thousand  people  may  consti- 
tute a  city,  and  it  may  be  rated  in  prosperity  in  proportion  to  its 
increase  in  buildings  and  population,  aud  its  growth  in  wealth 
and  industries  —  may  we  not  look  for  higher  evidences  of  its 
comparative  rank  in  its  development  of  principles  and  men  ? 

Now  that  our  cities  are  rapidly  becoming  like  so  many  fur- 
naces where  human  lives  are  consumed  like  coal  to  meet  the 
demands  of  our  civilization,  the  question  of  how  to  conserve 
life  and  add  to  its  capacity  for  health  and  enjoyment  is  rap- 
idly growing  in  importance.  Perhaps  no  community  has  taken 
hold  of  this  subject  with  a  more  comprehensive  grasp  than  the 
one  in  which  we  live.  Cambridge  may  be  said  to  be  the  very 
centre  of  growth  in  municipal  health  and  individual  hygiene  in 
America.^ 

The  effects  of  a  sedentary  life,  and  the  close  confinement 
necessarily  accompanying  the  intellectual  efforts  of  the  students, 
must  have  drawn  the  attention  of  the  college  authorities  to  the 
matter  of  health  preservation  at  an  early  period  in  its  history, 
although  we  have  no  record  of  any  practical  effort  in  this  direc- 
tion until  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  that  whatever  efforts  are  made  by  the  college 
towards  the  maintenance  of  health  must  necessarily  be  supple- 
mented by  the  city.  The  college  can  teach  the  elements  of 
hygiene  and  correct  methods  of  living,  and  the  individual  may 
apply  these  precepts  to  his  own  life,  but  so  long  as  the  physical 

^  See  chapter  on  Health  in  Cambridge,  by  H.  P.  Walcott,  M.  D,  —  Ed- 
itor. 


DR.  POLLEN.  165 

man  is  ultimately  the  product  of  the  air  he  breathes,  the  food 
he  eats,  and  the  water  he  drinks,  his  immediate  environments 
must  play  an  important  part  in  his  health  and  development. 

In  this  respect,  a  man  who  undertakes  to  build  himself  up 
mentally  or  physically  becomes  for  the  time  being  simply  an 
agent  of  distribution.  That  is,  by  bringing  his  mental  faculties 
into  increased  activity  he  can  send  nutriment  to  his  brain,  or  by 
using  his  muscles  vigorously  he  can  send  nutriment  to  different 
parts  of  his  body,  in  this  way  building  up  and  elaborating  mate- 
rial substances  into  the  highest  kind  of  organic  faculty. 

But  the  nature  of  these  material  substances  and  the  condi- 
tion in  which  they  are  brought  to  him  are  often  beyond  his 
individual  control.  Thus  the  condition  of  the  soil,  the  source 
and  nature  of  the  food  and  drinking  water,  the  presence  of 
stagnant  pools  and  nuisances  in  the  neighborhood,  the  over- 
growth of  trees,  the  prevalence  of  dust,  the  state  of  the  sewer- 
age and  of  the  streets,  drains,  and  rivers,  are  all  matters  which 
affect  individual  health,  but  unfortunately  are  matters  over 
which  the  individual  oftentimes  can  have  but  little  influence. 

Here  it  is  that  men  acting  collectively  or  as  a  municipal- 
ity may  effect  changes  and  improvements  for  the  common 
good.  As  the  individual  suffers  or  prospers  in  consequence  of 
his  environment,  so  the  city  prospers  or  deteriorates  as  it  be- 
comes attractive  or  otherwise  to  the  individual  as  a  place  of 
residence  or  a  place  of  business.  Thus  it  might  be  maintained 
that  in  health  matters,  as  they  affect  individuals,  institutions,  or 
the  public,  the  interest  of  the  college  and  the  city  are  reciprocal 
if  not  identical.  Let  us  note,  therefore,  the  progress  which  the 
college  and  the  city  have  made  in  these  matters  during  the  past 
century.  In  this  review  I  shall  confine  myself  principally  to 
the  health  agencies  brought  into  popular  service  through  what 
is  ordinarily  termed  physical  training. 

Harvard's  first  attempt  to  afford  her  students  physical  exer- 
cise in  addition  to  that  which  they  obtained  in  performing  the 
ordinary  duties  of  life  seems  to  have  been  about  1826.  In  this 
year  Dr.  FoUen  came  to  Cambridge  and  established  a  gymna- 
sium at  Harvard  College,  in  one  of  the  unoccupied  Commons 
halls,  which  was  fitted  up  with  various  gymnastic  appliances. 
Other  fixtures  were  erected  on  the  Delta,  where  Memorial  Hall 
now  stands,  but  concerning  the  working  of  these  gymnasiums 
we  have,  unfortunately,  very  little  knowledge. 


PHYSICAL   TRAINING. 

Dr.  John  C.  Warren,  who  for  forty  years  was  professor  of 
anatomy  and  surgery  in  the  Harvard  Medical  School,  and  who 
at  that  time  lectured  to  the  students  at  Cambridge  on  the  pres- 
ervation of  health,  states  that  small  gymnasiums  were  estab- 
lished, soon  after  the  opening  at  Harvard,  at  most  of  the  schools, 
academies,  and  colleges,  male  and  female,  in  the  vicinity.  Some 
years  later.  Dr.  Warren  writes  :  "  The  establishment  of  gymna- 
sia throughout  the  country  promised  at  one  period  the  open- 
ing of  a  new  era  in  physical  education.  The  exercises  were 
pursued  with  ardor  so  long  as  the  novelty  lasted,  but  owing 
to  not  understanding  their  importance,  or  some  defect  in  the 
institution  which  adopted  them,  they  have  gradually  been  neg- 
lected and  forgotten,  at  least  in  our  own  vicinity.  The  benefits 
which  resulted  from  these  institutions,  within  my  personal  know- 
ledge and  experience,  far  transcended  the  most  sanguine  ex- 
pectations. The  diversions  of  the  gymnasium  should  consti- 
tute a  regular  part  of  the  duties  of  all  colleges  and  seminaries  of 
learning." 

The  only  authentic  account  of  the  work  done  at  the  Harvard 
gymnasium  in  1826,  that  I  have  been  able  to  find,  is  that  con- 
tained in  Dr.  Edward  Jarvis's  work  on  "  Physiology  and  the 
Laws  of  Health,"  published  thirty  years  ago.  In  this  treatise 
he  says  :  "  The  students  were  invited  to  go  to  the  playgrounds  at 
twelve,  and  engage  in  gymnastic  exercises  till  one  o'clock.  These 
were  very  active,  and  some  of  them  violent  for  men  and  boys 
of  their  strength,  so  that  when  they  left  the  field  for  dinner 
they  were  generally  fatigued,  and  some  were  almost  exhausted. 
Those  who  were  most  fatigued  ate  their  dinner  with  less  relish, 
and  felt  neither  refreshed  nor  comfortable  afterwards.  Their 
stomachs  could  not  digest  the  meal  with  the  usual  ease,  and 
consequently  they  were  heaAry  and  indisposed  for  study  in  the 
afternoon." 

Again  Dr.  Jarvis  writes:  "It  was  supposed  several  years 
ago,  during  the  period  beginning  1826,  that  the  gymnasium 
would  furnish  opportunities  and  inducements  to  exercise  for  all 
such  as  were  not  required  by  their  business  or  their  condition  in 
life  to  labor.  In  these  establishments  means  were  provided  for 
using  all  the  limbs  and  muscles.  There  were  ropes  to  climb, 
parallel  bars  to  walk  upon  with  the  hands,  and  wooden  horses 
to  mount  upon  and  leap  over.  There  were  means  for  climbing, 
swinging  upon  the  arms,  leaping,  vaulting,  and  for  performing 


EARLY  GAMES.  167 

some  of  the  feats  of  the  rope  dancer,  and  some  of  the  labors  of 
the  sailor.  These  exercises  were  active  and  laborious.  Those 
who  engaged  in  them  made,  or  endeavored  to  make,  the  exer- 
tions which  only  strong  men  could  make.  But  they  were  soon 
fatigued,  and  left  the  gymnasium  ;  or,  if  they  persevered,  were 
nearly  exhausted.  The  error  was  not  adapting  the  mode  to, 
and  measuring  the  amount  of  exertion  by,  the  strength  of  those 
who  needed  it. 

"  The  students  of  Cambridge  in  1826  complained  that  they 
were  fatigued  and  sometimes  overcome,  rather  than  invigorated, 
at  the  gymnasium,  and  were  unfit  for  study  for  some  hours 
afterward.  The  final  result  of  this  attempt  to  introduce  this 
system  of  exercises  into  our  colleges,  schools,  and  cities  was  a 
general  failure." 

Colonel  Higginson  speaks  of  this  gymnasium  on  the  Delta 
as  being  in  existence  in  1830,  but  thinks  there  was  nothing  left 
of  it  by  1840,  and  he  is  sure  that  when  he  graduated  in  1841 
there  was  nothing  like  a  gymnasium  existing  in  Cambridge. 

In  1843  or  1844,  a  private  gymnasium  was  established  back 
of  Wyeth's  store  on  Brattle  Street,  in  an  old  building  which 
formerly  stood  where  Lyceum  Hall  now  is,  originally  used  as  a 
court-house.^  This  private  gymnasium  was  conducted  by  a  man 
named  T.  Belcher  Kay,  who  devoted  most  of  his  attention  to 
boxing.  Parkman,  the  historian,  and  many  of  the  men  in  col- 
lege at  that  time,  were  pupils  of  Kay,  though  the  gymnasium 
had  no  official  connection  with  the  university. 

During  this  period  considerable  interest  was  awakened  in 
recreative  games,  football,  baseball,  and  cricket  then  beino- 
played.  College  boat-clubs  were  formed  in  1845,  and  the  first 
boat-house  was  built  in  1846.  From  this  year  on,  boatino-  was 
freely  engaged  in  by  the  students,  partly  for  exercise,  but  prin- 
cipally for  pleasure.  Although  boat  races  began  as  early  as 
1845,  there  were  no  contests  with  Yale  and  other  colleges  until 
after  1850.  During  the  next  decade  the  seed  sown  by  Harvard 
was  beginning  to  bear  fruit  in  other  institutions.  Match  ball 
games  and  boat  races  were  occasionally  arranged,  and  a  re- 
newed interest  in  gymnastics  was  awakening.     In  1860,  the  old 

^  It  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  this  building  forms  part  of  the  rear 
of  the  Whitney  building  on  Palmer  Street,  where  forty  years  later  (in  1883) 
the  writer  opened  a  gymnasium  for  the  students  of  the  Harvard  Annex,  as 
it  was  then  termed. 


168  PHYSICAL   TRAINING. 

gymnasiiun  opposite  Memorial  Hall,  now  used  by  the  engineer- 
ing department,  was  erected. 

Immediately  after  the  establishment  of  the  gymnasium  at 
Harvard  in  1860,  gymnasiums  were  built  at  Amherst,  Dart- 
mouth, Princeton,  Yale,  Wesleyan,  and  several  other  colleges. 
In  the  early  sixties,  the  present  game  of  baseball  was  first 
played  at  Harvard,  and  the  Cambridge  city  government  granted 
a  petition  for  the  use  of  the  Common  near  the  Washington 
Elm  as  a  practice  ground  for  the  college  students.  This  was 
used  until  the  spring  of  1864,  after  which  the  Delta  was  used 
for  baseball  games. 

In  the  next  decade,  beginning  1870,  several  more  college 
gymnasiums  were  built,  including  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium 
at  Harvard  University.  The  Harvard  Athletic  Association  was 
established  in  1874,  and  the  Rugby  football  game,  which  seems 
to  have  such  a  hold  upon  the  American  public,  was  introduced 
at  Harvard  at  about  this  time. 

With  the  completion  of  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium,  and  its 
equipment  with  a  new  system  of  apparatus,  a  new  era  was 
introduced  in  gymnasium  construction  and  in  gymnasium, 
methods.  Some  of  the  features  which  made  the  Hemenway 
Gymnasium  unique  at  the  time  of  its  opening  may  be  briefly 
stated :  It  was  the  largest  gymnasium  in  point  of  floor-room, 
air  space,  and  the  number  of  its  dressing-rooms,  lockers,  and 
pieces  of  apparatus  then  in  the  country.  The  recent  addition 
given  to  the  university  by  Mr.  Hemenway  has  placed  the  Har- 
vard Gjmanasium  again  at  the  head  of  the  list  in  all  of  these 
particulars.  The  Hemenway  was  the  first  gymnasium  in  the 
country  to  have  special  rooms  devoted  to  rowing,  baseball, 
fencing,  sparring,  trophies,  records,  photographing,  examina- 
tions, etc. 

In  the  old-style  gymnasium  it  was  necessary  for  the  man  to 
adapt  himself  to  the  apparatus ;  in  the  new-style  gymnasium, 
the  apparatus  is  adapted  to  the  man.  At  first,  the  apparatus 
was  heavy  and  cumbersome,  and  the  man  was  obliged  to  lift  his 
ovm  weight.  In  his  efforts  to  do  so  he  was  frequently  over- 
worked and  exhausted,  as  previously  stated  by  Dr.  Jar  vis.  Now 
most  of  the  apparatus  is  attached  to  a  weight  that  he  can  lift, 
and  this  is  easily  adjusted  to  the  strength  of  the  strong  and  the 
weakness  of  the  weak.  Formerly,  in  using  the  gymnasium,  a 
young  man  was  forced  to  enter  into  competition  with  others  in 


NEW  APPARATUS.  169 

the  performance  of  difficult  feats ;  now  he  can  avoid  the  heavy 
apparatus  if  he  desires  to,  and  enter  into  competition  with  him- 
self ;  that  is,  with  his  own  condition  from  time  to  time,  as  de- 
termined by  physical  examinations.  The  old  gymnasium  was 
necessarily  restricted  to  the  few  on  account  of  the  limited  nature 
of  its  equipment ;  the  modern  system  of  apparatus  and  develop- 
ing appliances  has  opened  up  the  possibilities  of  the  gymnasium 
to  everybody.  Formerly,  any  kind  of  material,  put  together  in 
any  way,  was  thought  good  enough  to  "  make  things  for  boys  to 
play  with ; "  now,  the  best  material  on  the  market  is  selected 
for  gymnastic  and  athletic  goods,  and  the  best  mechanical  skill 
in  the  country  is  engaged  in  the  construction  of  athletic  appli- 
ances. When  the  history  of  the  rise  and  spread  of  the  interest 
in  physical  exercise  is  written,  it  will  be  surprising  to  many  to 
know  how  much  of  this  interest  may  be  attributed  to  the  genius 
of  the  inventor,  and  the  skill  of  the  artificer  and  mechanic. 

The  introduction  of  the  new  apparatus  at  Harvard  made  also 
a  new  era  in  the  method  or  system  employed.  Whereas  in 
many  institutions  attendance  upon  gymnasium  exercises  is  re- 
quired by  classes,  at  Harvard  the  attendance  is  voluntary,  and 
the  system  adopted  is  one  designed  to  meet  the  special  wants  of 
each  individual.  Realizing  the  great  diversity  in  age,  size,  and 
strength,  as  well  as  in  health,  of  the  students  who  attend  the 
university,  the  director  makes  no  attempt  to  group  them  into 
classes  which  pursue  the  same  course  of  exercises. 

Upon  entering  the  university,  each  student  is  entitled  to  a 
physical  examination  by  the  director,  in  which  his  bodily  pro- 
portions are  measured,  his  strength  tested,  his  heart  and  lungs 
examined,  and  information  solicited  concerning  his  health  and 
inherited  tendencies.  From  the  data  thus  procured  a  special 
order  of  appropriate  exercises  is  made  out  for  each  student, 
with  specifications  of  the  movements  and  apparatus  which  he 
may  best  use.  These  exercises  are  marked  in  outline  on  cards 
without  charge,  or  in  handbooks  accompanied  by  charts  at  a 
small  expense.  After  working  on  this  prescription  for  three 
or  six  months,  the  student  is  entitled  to  another  examination, 
by  which  the  results  of  the  work  are  ascertained,  and  the  di- 
rector enabled  to  make  a  further  prescription.  Students  hold- 
ing scholarships  are  expected  to  be  examined  twice  a  year,  and 
those  desiring  to  enter  athletic  contests  are  required  to  be  ex- 
amined by  the  director,  and  obtain  his  permission  so  to  do.     In 


170  PHYSICAL   TRAINING. 

addition  to  the  individual  prescriptions,  there  are  classes  in 
free  movements  and  light  gymnastics,  designed  to  afford  an 
opportunity  for  general  development  to  all  students  of  the  uni- 
versity who  are  not  members  of  the  athletic  teams,  or  who  are 
not  in  need  of  specially  prescribed  exercises.  All  students  de- 
siring to  enter  as  competitors  in  athletic  contests  are  required 
to  give  evidence  of  their  ability  by  making  a  series  of  strength 
tests,  in  addition  to  the  regular  physical  examinations.  Under 
this  regime  the  attendance  at  the  gymnasium  has  grown  from 
about  500  in  1880  to  2000  and  over  in  1896. 

Perhaps  the  most  radical  difference  between  the  old  and  new 
Harvard  may  be  illustrated  by  the  position  the  authorities  have 
taken  since  1882  in  regard  to  athletic  sports.  In  the  later  six- 
ties, and  all  through  the  seventies,  the  athletic  zeal  and  energies 
of  the  students  were  concentrated  upon  the  production  of  a 
successful  baseball  nine  and  a  winning  boat  crew.  Given  other 
institutions  fired  with  the  same  ambition  and  equally  persist- 
ent, it  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  efforts  in  this 
direction  would  be  carried  to  excess.  The  Harvard  faculty 
concluded  that  its  students  had  reached  this  stage  in  1882,  and 
appointed  a  committee  to  regulate  and  control  athletic  sports  in 
the  university.  The  work  and  policy  of  this  committee  is  too 
familiar  to  the  Cambridge  public  to  call  for  any  comment  here. 
In  the  mean  time,  another  phase  of  the  athletic  problem  has 
presented  itself.  While  some  institutions  seem  much  con- 
cerned as  to  what  their  students  are  doing  for  athletics,  the 
authorities  of  Harvard  University  are  more  desirous  of  know- 
ing what  athletics  are  doing  for  their  students.  In  other  words, 
the  growing  disparity  between  the  number  of  athletic  teams  and 
the  increasing  number  of  students  is  becoming  more  marked 
every  year,  and  efforts  are  being  made  to  extend  the  athletic 
facilities  of  the  university  so  that  larger  numbers  of  students 
can  enjoy  the  advantages  of  practicing  out-door  exercises. 

Through  the  munificence  of  Mr.  Augustus  Hemenway,  Colo- 
nel H.  L.  Higginson,  Mr.  G.  W.  Weld,  and  a  few  other  grad- 
uates, the  general  plant  for  exercise,  physical  training,  and 
athletic  sports  has  been  greatly  augmented  within  the  past  few 
years.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  institution  in  the  world  can  sur- 
pass the  facilities  of  Harvard  in  this  department  of  education. 
But  how  has  Cambridge  been  affected  by  this  revival  of  inter- 
est in  physical  training?  some  of  my  readers  may  ask.     The 


THE  INTEREST  SPREADS.  171 

y.  M.  C.  A.  gymnasium  at  Central  Square,  and  the  Cambridge- 
port  gymnasium  on  Prospect  Street  were  among  the  first  to  adopt 
the  Harvard  apparatus,  which  has  also  recently  been  introduced 
into  the  Newtowne  Club  gymnasium  at  North  Cambridge. 

Although  this  new  movement  in  gymnasium  construction  and 
equipment  got  its  first  footing  in  Cambridge,  no  manufacturer 
in  the  city  had  faith  enough  in  the  future  growth  and  demands 
for  gymnasium  supplies  to  embark  in  it  as  a  business  enterprise, 
though  there  are  several  companies  in  different  parts  of  the 
United  States  making  this  new  style  of  apparatus.  We  shall 
not  attempt  to  describe  the  extent  to  which  this  new  move- 
ment in  physical  education  has  spread,  the  number  of  persons 
reached,  nor  the  amount  of  money  expended  in  land,  buildings, 
and  equipment.  We  know  that  gymnasiums  and  athletic  clubs 
have  arisen  by  the  hundreds  all  over  the  country.  Some  of  the 
most  expensive  of  the  gymnasiums  have  cost  over  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  and  one  of  the  athletic  associations  in  New 
York  has  property  valued  at  little  less  than  a  million  dollars. 
The  memberships  of  the  gymnasiums  range  from  fifty  to  three 
thousand  each,  and  the  number  of  individuals  reached  in  the 
clubs  and  schools  combined  must  aggregate  several  hundred 
thousand. 

Some  idea  of  the  growth  of  interest  in  physical  development 
in  the  United  States,  and  the  special  directions  it  is  taking  may 
be  inferred  from  the  following  lists  of  gymnasiums  that  have 
been  built,  reconstructed,  or  equipped,  to  the  writer's  know- 
ledge, since  the  World's  Fair  in  1893. 

Y.  M.  C.  A.  Gymnasiums •  48 

Private  School  Gymnasiums 37 

College  Gymnasiums 32 

Athletic  Club  Gj^mnasiums 22 

Normal  School  Gymnasiums 17 

Public  School  Gymnasiums 7 

Private  Gymnasiums 15 

Church  Gymnasiums 16 

Armory  Gymnasiums 4 

Foreign,  Turnverein,  Park,  Sanitary,  and  Police  Gymnasiums  7 

Total 205 

The  past  fifteen  years  may  fairly  be  said  to  represent  the  era 
of  gymnasium  construction,  and  the  next  few  years  will  witness 
a  marked  improvement  in  gymnasium  intructions. 


172  PHYSICAL   TRAINING. 

It  is  natural  that  individuals  desiring  to  acquaint  themselves 
more  fully  with  the  Harvard  methods  of  physical  training 
should  be  attracted  to  Cambridge  as  the  centre  from  which  the 
new  movement  has  largely  radiated.  Harvard  began  to  feel 
the  demand  for  instructors  in  this  branch  of  education  soon 
after  the  completion  of  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium.  Since 
1887  there  has  been  a  considerable  number  of  teachers  from 
all  parts  of  the  country  who  have  repaired  to  Cambridge  during 
the  summer  months  to  study  and  practice  the  methods  of  phy- 
sical training  taught  at  the  Harvard  Summer  School.  In  this 
department  alone  we  have  had  since  the  school  opened  584 
different  pupils,  206  of  whom  were  men,  and  378  women.  Of 
these,  225  have  come  from  New  England,  192  from  the  Middle 
Eastern  States,  111  from  the  Middle  or  Central  States,  19  from 
the  extreme  Western  States  and  Pacific  slope,  and  13  from 
England  and  the  Provinces.  In  all,  43  different  States  and 
countries  have  been  represented.  Last  summer  the  school  had 
90  pupils  and  32  instructors.  These  pupils  are  for  the  most 
part  engaged  in  teaching  gymnastics  or  athletics  in  schools, 
colleges,  universities,  athletic  clubs,  Christian  associations,  sani- 
tariums, hospitals,  and  asylums  all  over  the  country. 

Many  of  these  teachers  who  come  to  Cambridge  during  the 
college  vacation  time  are  accompanied  by  friends  and  relatives, 
who  make  the  city  their  temporary  camping  ground,  from  which 
they  make  daily  pilgrimages  to  the  places  of  historical  interest 
in  this  locality  and  the  immediate  vicinity.  In  addition  to  the 
gymnasium  teachers  who  frequent  our  Summer  School,  we  have 
army  officers,  school  superintendents  and  principals,  instructors 
and  college  professors  in  other  departments,  and  many  persons 
who  take  the  course  for  their  personal  improvement.  Thus  it 
will  be  seen  that  Cambridge  as  the  seat  of  the  great  university 
is  not  only  building  up  hardy  and  vigorous  bodies  for  its  reg- 
ular students,  but  through  its  courses  for  teachers  is  helping  to 
advance  the  cause  of  physical  education  throughout  the  land. 

The  athletic  organizations  of  the  university  have  undoubtedly 
exerted  a  great  influence  over  the  youth  of  Cambridge.  The 
regularity  of  living  while  in  training  for  the  great  games  and 
contests,  the  daily  regime  as  to  diet,  sleep,  bathing,  etc.,  and 
the  voluntary  discipline  under  which  the  students  place  them- 
selves in  order  to  reach  the  coveted  goal,  are  all  great  moral 
lessons  in  their  way,  and  lessons  which  the  boy  often  accepts 


A  GENEROUS  OFFER.  173 

from  his  hero  in  the  field  rather  than  from  his  Sunday-school 
teacher.  The  stimulus  afforded  by  the  athletic  life  of  the  stu- 
dents is  felt  by  all  classes  of  Cambridge  people,  from  the  boy 
who  crawls  under  the  fence  to  see  a  game  to  the  merchant 
prince  who  fills  a  palace  car  with  his  friends,  and  takes  them  a 
hundred  miles  to  see  a  similar  exhibition.  Some  of  the  best 
amateur  and  professional  athletes  of  the  country  in  various 
branches  of  sport  have  been  natives  or  residents  of  Cambridge, 
and  few  will  question  the  source  of  their  aspirations. 

In  this  connection  it  has  often  occurred  to  the  writer  that  the 
city  might  avail  itself  to  a  greater  extent  of  many  of  the  advan- 
tages that  the  imiversity  extends  to  it.  In  June,  1890,  the  col- 
lege authorities  addressed  the  following  communication  to  the 
City  Council  of  Cambridge  :  — 

"  The  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  CoUege  hereby  offer  to  the 
City  of  Cambridge  for  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  public,  in  common 
with  the  President  and  Fellows,  all  their  grounds  lying  northerly  from 
Harvard  Street  and  easterly  from  North  Avenue,  for  twelve  weeks 
from  the  IVIonday  following  the  last  Wednesday  in  June,  in  each  and 
every  year,  until  further  notice,  provided  that  the  city  restore  the 
grounds  to  the  university  at  the  expiration  of  the  twelve  weeks  in  the 
same  condition,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  which  it  received  them." 

This  offer  includes  the  use  of  the  running  track  and  baseball 
ground  on  Holmes  Field,  and  some  thirty  or  more  tennis  courts 
on  Jarvis  Field,  and  in  a  city  where  over  a  hundred  teachers 
are  being  trained  every  year  as  instructors  of  gymnastics  and 
athletics,  and  as  directors  of  the  physical  training  in  the  public 
schools  of  other  cities,  the  acceptance  of  such  an  offer  might 
prove  of  great  utility. 

The  city  need  not  hesitate  on  grounds  of  economy,  as  the 
amount  ef  instruction  necessary  could  be  obtained  for  a  small 
sum  compared  to  what  other  cities  pay,  and  the  normal  pupils 
who  are  brought  to  Cambridge,  when  preparing  for  the  work, 
are  desirous  of  opportunities  to  teach  as  a  matter  of  experi- 
ence. Similar  service  will  be  rendered  as  the  city  supplies  itself 
with  public  parks  and  open-air  playgrounds  and  gymnasiums 
like  those  in  Boston,. in  accordance  with  the  plans  of  the  present 
Park  Commission.  With  these  additions  to  its  fine  natural 
facilities,  Cambridge  will  be  unsurpassed  as  a  place  of  residence, 
not  only  for  the  rich  and  well-to-do,  but  also  for  the  poor. 


RADCLIFFE   COLLEGE. 

By  ARTHUR  OILMAN, 

REGENT   OF   KADCLIFFE   COLLEaE. 

In  the  year  1643,  the  Rev.  Thomas  Weld,  pastor  of  the  church 
in  Roxbury,  received  from  "  Lady  Ann  Moulson,  of  London, 
widow,"  the  sum  of  one  hundred  pounds  current  English 
money,  for  Harvard  College  in  New  England.^  The  purpose 
which  Lady  Moulson  had  in  making  this  gift  is  expressed  in 
the  formal  receipt  which  with  great  business  sagacity  she  ex- 
acted of  Mr.  Weld.  That  document  has  been  preserved,  and 
two  consequences  have  followed.  Lady  Moulson's  intention  in 
contributing  the  money  "out  of  Christian  desire  to  advance 
good  learning,"  was  to  bestow  the  income  upon  such  poor 
"schoUer"  as  the  college  might  think  best,  though  it  was 
stipulated  that  in  case  any  kinsman  of  hers  were  admitted  to 
the  college,  the  income  should  be  his  until  he  had  attained  his 
master's  degree,  even  though  it  might  at  the  time  be  awarded 
tos  another. 

This  fund,  as  Mr.  Andrew  McFarland  Davis,  who  discovered 
it  anew  a  few  years  ago,  expresses  it,  established  the  "  first 
scholarship  in  Harvard,"  and  "  unquestionably  the  oldest  and 
most  interesting  foundation  of  the  kind  in  this  country."  It  is 
a  scholarship  in  a  college  for  men  established  by  a  woman.  Sir 
Thomas  Moulson  (doubtless  the  husband  of  Lady  Ann)  was 
lord  mayor  of  London  in  1634,  and  was  knighted  that  year. 
He  was  a  man  of  generous  deeds,  and  founded  a  "  faire  school " 
in  Cheshire,  the  town  in  which  he  was  born,  "  for  the  govern- 
ment, education,  and  instruction  of  youth  in  grammar  and  vir- 
tue." The  fact  that  he  shared  the  general  interest  that  adven- 
tures in  America  had  roused  in  England  at  that  time,  made  it 
natural  that  the  friends  of  Harvard  College  should  turn  to  his 
widow  when  they  needed  money.  Thus  it  was  that  the  first 
^  See  A  History  of  Harvard  University,  by  Benjamin  Peirce,  p.  12. 


DR.  STEARNS'S  SUGGESTION.  175 

scholarship  was  established  in  the  college.  It  lapsed  for  many 
a  long  year,  but  it  has  at  last  been  reestablished  through  the 
instrumentality  of  Mr.  Davis. 

Mr.  Davis  published  his  researches  not  far  from  the  time  that 
those  interested  in  the  education  of  women  by  the  professors  of 
Harvard  College  were  seeking  a  name  for  their  institution,  and 
it  was  decided  that  the  maiden  name  of  the  founder  of  the  first 
scholarship  in  the  parent  institution  was  by  far  the  most  appro- 
priate for  a  college  which  was  to  give  collegiate  instruction  to 
her  sex.  The  investigations  of  Mr.  Davis  had  established,  as 
well  as  it  could  be  established  under  the  circumstances,  that 
Radcliffe  was  the  name  which  the  bride  of  Mr.  Moulson  had 
borne  before  her  marriage,  and  therefore  it  was  chosen  for  the 
new  college.  It  was  in  1894  that  the  legislature  of  Massachu- 
setts passed  an  act  establishing  Radcliffe  College,  giving  it  wide 
powers  in  connection  with  Harvard  College,  the  president  and 
fellows  of  which  were  made  responsible  for  the  grade  of  its 
instruction  and  for  the  character  of  its  degrees.  At  last  the 
sarcasm  of  Swift,  uttered  more  than  a  century  before,  had  no 
application  to  Cambridge.  "  My  Master,"  said  he,  "  thought  it 
monstrous  in  us  to  give  the  Females  a  different  kind  of  Educa- 
tion from  the  Males."  Harvard  College  no  longer  educated 
one  half  of  the  human  being,  but  gave  to  both  halves  instruc- 
tion of  the  same  high  grade  and  placed  its  seal  upon  degrees  of 
the  same  value. 

The  idea  of  a  college  for  women  in  Cambridge,  which  should 
share  the  advantages  of  the  University,  had  been  presented  nearly 
thirty  years  before,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  A.  Stearns,  for 
more  than  twenty  years  pastor  of  the  Prospect  Street  Church. 
Dr.  Stearns  was  a  prominent  member  of  the  School  Board,  and 
in  the  Report  for  1849  he  left  the  following  record  of  his  far- 
seeing  wisdom :  — 

"  When  we  take  into  consideration  that  our  noble  University, 
with  its  professional  and  scientific  schools,  towers  in  the  midst 
of  us,  and  that  the  High  School  now  forms  a  connecting  link  be- 
tween this  institution  and  the  lower  schools,  we  cannot  but  look 
with  admiration  upon  the  educational  advantages  of  Cambridge. 

"  If  private  munificence  would  endow  one  additional  school, 
in  which  our  daughters  could  obtain  ad\antages  for  improve- 
ment approximating  those  which  our  sons  enjoy  in  the  Univer- 
sity, the  opportunities  for  education  would  be  unquestionably 


176  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

superior  in  Cambridge  to  what  can  be  found  in  any  other  spot 
on  the  globe."  ^ 

Radcliffe  College  did  not,  however,  start  up  at  a  moment  by 
the  fiat  of  the  legislature  of  the  State.  Its  origin  dates  back 
some  sixteen  or  more  years.  There  had  been  long  and  anxious 
considerations  of  the  method  by  which  such  a  momentous  result 
might  be  accomplished.  Many  people  had  before  that  date, 
even,  been  asking  ("demanding "  might  be  a  better  word)  that 
g-irls  shoidd  of  right  be  admitted  to  equal  privileges  in  the 
venerable  university  ;  but,  though  they  did  not  know  it,  they 
demanded  a  revolution,  and  revolutions  are  more  frequent  in 
political  affairs  than  in  affairs  educational.  Sturdy  "  demands  " 
fell  unheeded  at  the  closed  doors  of  the  university.  It  was  left 
for  milder  methods  to  win  success. 

Parental  solicitude  showed  the  way.^  A  mother  and  a  father 
were  discussing  the  education  of  a  daughter  for  whom  it  seemed 
to  them  that  the  ordinary  curriculum  of  the  schools  for  girls  did 
not  provide  enough  advanced  work.  The  study  of  their  par- 
ticular problem  led  them  to  believe  that  they  would  accomplish 
what  they  wanted  for  their  own  child  by  making  provision  for 
the  children  of  others.  Thus  it  was  that  they  formed  a  plan  for 
giving  parallel  courses  of  instruction  outside  of  Harvard  College 
by  the  professors,  which  would  make  it  possible  for  a  woman  to 
take  all  the  work  required  for  the  bachelor's  degree,  if  not  to 
go  further  in  collegiate  work.  This  plan  solved  for  the  time 
the  difficulties  that  had  been  foreseen  by  those  who  had  wished 
for  the  greatest  advantages  for  women  in  connection  with  Har- 
vard College.  The  objections  that  had  been  raised,  on  the  one 
hand,  by  those  who  wished  the  women  to  be  admitted  to  the 
classes  of  men,  or  on  the  other,  by  those  who  wished  that  they 
might  be  taught  in  quite  separate  classes,  were  not  valid  against 
it.     Yet  women  were  to  get  the  real  Harvard  education. 

It  was  easier  to  make  a  plan,  however,  than  it  was  to  foresee 
how  it  would  be  received  by  the  professors  and  by  the  corpora- 
tion of  the  college.  Doubts  in  the  minds  of  the  originators 
made  them  hesitate,  and  during  the  weeks  that  followed,  which 
extended  themselves  into  months,  they  discussed  many  ways  of 
caring  for  the  women  who  might  be  brought  to  Cambridge. 

*  The  attention  of  the  writer  was  called  to  this  utterance  by  the  present 
Superintendent  of  Schools,  Mr.  Francis  Cogswell. 

^  See  Cambridge  Sketches  by  Cambridge  Authors,  Cambridge,  1896,  p.  183. 


A   NOTABLE  DWELLING.  Ill 

Houses  were  looked  at,  and  finally  one  was  chosen  as  the  best 
adapted  to  the  uses  of  the  proposed  institution.  It  was  on  the 
side  of  the  Common,  almost  under  the  "  Washington  Elm,"  not 
far  from  the  home  of  Longfellow  and  opposite  the  birthplace  of 
Holmes,  a  dwelling  that  Mr.  Longfellow  had  been  a  frequent 
visitor  in,  and  through  the  halls  of  which  Dr.  Holmes,  as  it  was 
afterwards  learned,  had  in  his  younger  life  often  walked,  if  he 
had  not  indeed  trodden  more  lively  measures  there.  This  house 
was  of  quiet  dignity,  and  had  for  a  long  time  been  the  home 
of  the  family  of  Judge  Fay,  wherefore  it  has  since  been  known 
as  Fay  House.  Behind  it  were  inclosures  in  which  the  vener- 
able Professor  Sophocles  cared  for  a  collection  of  hens,  for  each 
egg  of  which  he  seemed  to  have  a  personal  interest.  Edward 
Everett  had  once  lived  in  the  building,  and  Professor  McKean 
had  his  residence  in  it  during  his  professorship  from  1810  to 
1818.  It  was  not  known  generally  then  that  in  the  front  room 
in  the  second  story  on  the  north  side  of  the  front  hall  the  Rev- 
erend Samuel  Gilman,  a  relative  of  Judge  Fay,  had  written  the 
words  of  "  Fair  Harvard,"  to  be  used  on  the  occasion  of  the  two 
hundredth  anniversary  of  Harvard  College,  —  words  that  have 
been  sung  at  every  Commencement  since  that  day.  However, 
this  is  by  the  way.  The  house  was  occupied  at  the  time,  and 
there  seemed  no  probability  that  it  could  ever  be  obtained  for 
such  a  purpose  as  the  anxious  schemers  had  in  mind.  Nothing 
could  be  said,  of  course,  of  such  a  desire. 

The  simple  plan  that  was  destined  to  succeed  was  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  president  of  Harvard  College  by  means  of 
the  following  letter  :  — 

5  Phillips  Place, 

Cambridge,  December  23,  1878. 

Dear  Sir  :  —  I  am  engaged  in  perfecting  a  plan  which  shall  afford 
to  women  opportunities  for  carrying  their  studies  systematically  for- 
ward further  than  it  is  possible  for  them  now  to  do  in  this  country 
except  possibly  at  Smith  College. 

My  plan  obliges  me  to  obtain  the  services  of  certain  of  the  professors, 
and  I  address  you  before  approaching  them  in  order  to  assure  myself 
that  I  am  correct  in  supposing  that  their  relations  to  the  university 
are  such  as  to  permit  of  their  giving  instruction  to  those  who  are  not 
connected  with  it. 

I  propose  to  bring  here  such  women  as  are  able  to  pass  an  examina- 
tion not  less  rigid  than  that  now  established  for  the  admission  of  young 


178  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

men,  and  to  offer  them  a  course  of  instruction  which  shall  be  a  counter- 
part of  that  pursued  by  the  men. 

It  is  probable  that  a  very  small  number  of  women  will  be  found  at 
first,  but  it  will  grow. 

I  am  aware  that  some  of  the  professors  now  give  instruction  to  pri- 
vate pupils  and  teach  elsewhere.  If  my  plan  prove  a  success  it  will 
relieve  them  from  such  irregular  labor  and  give  them  a  regular  addi- 
tion to  their  incomes. 

It  is,  however,  needless  that.  I  enlarge,  or  trouble  you  at  any  greater 
length. 

I  desire  only  to  be  assured  that  if  I  make  approaches  to  any  of  the 
Faculty  I  shall  be  asking  them  for  services  that  they  can  render  or 
not,  without  in  any  way  interfering  with  their  first  obligations  to  the 
imiversity. 

I  am  very  truly  yours, 

Arthur  Oilman. 
President  Eliot. 

The  writer  of  the  letter  had  a  few  weeks  previously  explained 
the  plan  to  a  member  of  the  faculty,  Professor  James  B.  Green- 
ough,  because  he  was  a  neighbor,  and  also  because  he  was  one 
of  three  professors  who  had  just  at  that  time  given  their  con- 
sent to  an  application  from  a  young  woman  for  instruction  of 
the  college  grade.  The  favorable  reception  of  the  scheme  by 
Professor  Greenough  was  immediate  and  enthusiastic,  and  the 
permission  of  President  Eliot  was  also  given  at  once.  The 
president  called  at  my  home  the  morning  after  the  date  of  the 
letter,  and  expressed  willingness  that  the  experiment  should 
be  tried,  for  all  felt  that  it  was  an  experiment  to  graft  the  edu- 
cation of  women  upon  the  stock  of  a  university  nearly  two  cen- 
turies and  a  half  of  age.  Mr.  Eliot,  like  many  others,  thought 
it  well  worth  effort.  He  was  told  that  it  was  to  be  tried  by  a 
few  ladies  who  were  quite  unorganized,  so  that  if  failure  should 
be  the  result.  Harvard  would  not  be  responsible,  though  if 
success  should  crown  the  effort.  Harvard  should  have  the  glory. 
Seven  ladies  constituted  the  "  committee,"  as  it  was  sometimes 
called,  though,  as  it  was  not  a  committee  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word,  some  difficulty  was  found  in  designating  the  body. 
Two  of  the  ladies  were  unmarried,  and  two  who  had  been  chosen 
by  natural  selection  were  married.  It  was  determined  to  choose 
three  more  married  ladies  and  thus  complete  the  number  of 
seven.  They  were,  in  the  order  of  coming  into  the  scheme, 
Mrs.  Gilman,  Mrs.  Greenough,  Miss  Longfellow,  Miss  Hors- 
ford,  Mrs.  Cooke,  Mrs.  Agassiz,  and  Mrs.  Gumey. 


THE  FIRST  STEPS.  179 

This  bare  statement  of  the  first  steps  in  the  organization 
gives  no  intimation  of  the  long  consideration  that  had  been 
devoted  to  the  subject  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gilman,  of  the  hesita- 
tion with  which  the  presentation  of  the  matter  to  Professor 
Greenough  had  been  made,  nor  of  the  anxiety  which  they  had 
had  lest  he  might  not  favor  it.  After  the  matter  had  been 
approved  by  one  professor,  it  was  laid  before  many  others,  and 
they  made  no  delay  in  giving  their  allegiance  to  it.  This  was 
in  1878.  Finally,  in  February,  1879,  on  Washington's  Birth- 
day, the  first  announcement  was  made,  by  a  circular  headed 
"  Private  Collegiate  Instruction  for  Women."  This  was  signed 
by  the  seven  ladies,  and  all  correspondence  was  directed  to  be 
sent  to  the  secretary.  The  statements  in  the  circular  were,  of 
necessity,  vague,  but  in  many  quarters  it  was  at  once  assumed 
that  Harvard  College  had  opened  its  doors  to  women,  and 
letters  came  from  different  parts  of  the  country  based  upon 
this  assumption.  The  substance  of  the  circular  had  been  tele- 
graphed to  the  newspapers  through  the  usual  agencies,  and 
special  articles  had  been  printed  in  the  editorial  columns  of  the 
"  Boston  Advertiser,"  and  in  daily  and  weekly  papers  in  New 
York.     The  circular  was  worded  as  follows  :  — 

PRIVATE   COLLEGIATE   INSTRUCTION   FOR   WOMEN. 

The  ladies  whose  names  are  appended  below  are  authorized  to  say 
that  a  number  of  Professors  and  other  Instructors  in  Harvard  College 
have  consented  to  give  private  tuition  to  properly  qualified  young 
women  who  desire  to  pursue  advanced  studies  in  Cambridge.  Other 
Professors  whose  occupations  prevent  them  from  giving  such  tuition 
are  willing  to  assist  young  women  by  advice  and  by  lectures.  No 
instruction  will  be  provided  of  a  lower  grade  than  that  given  in  Har- 
vard College. 

The  expense  of  instruction  in  as  many  branches  as  a  student  can 
profitably  pursue  at  once  will  depend  upon  the  numbers  in  the  several 
courses,  but  it  will  probably  not  exceed  four  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
and  may  be  as  low  as  two  hundred  and  fifty.  It  is  hoped,  however, 
that  endowments  may  hereafter  be  procured  which  will  materially 
reduce  this  expense. 

Pupils  who  show  upon  examination  that  they  have  satisfactorily 
pursued  any  courses  of  study  under  this  scheme  will  receive  certificates 
to  that  effect,  signed  by  their  Instructors.  It  is  hoped,  nevertheless, 
that  the  greater  number  will  pursue  a  four  years'  course  of  study,  in 
which  case  the  certificates  for  the  different  branches  of  study  will  be 


180  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

merged  in  one,  which  will  be  signed  by  all  the  Instructors  and  will 
certify  to  the  whole  course. 

The  ladies  will  see  that  the  students  secure  suitable  lodgings,  and 
will  assist  them  with  advice  and  other  friendly  offices. 

Information  as  to  the  qualifications  required,  with  the  names  of  the 
Instructors  in  any  branch,  may  be  obtained  upon  application  to  any 
one  of  the  ladies,  or  to  their  Secretary,  Mr.  Arthub  Gilman,  5  Phil- 
lips Place. 

Mrs.  Louis  Agassiz Quincy  Street. 

Mrs.  E.  W.  GuRNEY Fayerweather  Street. 

Mrs.  J.  P.  Cooke Quincy  Street. 

Mrs.  J.  B.  Greenough  ....  Appian  Way. 

Mrs.  Arthur  Gilman         ....  Phillips  Place. 

Miss  Alice  M.  Longfellow         .         .        .  Brattle  Street. 

Miss  Lilian  Horsford      ....  Craigie  Street. 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  February  22,  1879. 

Other  circulars  followed,  and  in  September  the  examinations 
for  admission  were  held  in  a  building  numbered  six  on  Appian 
Way,  the  family  in  which  had  with  great  generosity  rented 
rooms  for  the  purpose.  The  papers  submitted  to  the  candidates 
were  the  same  that  Harvard  College  used  at  the  same  hours  for 
its  young  men,  and  thus  the  same  standards  were  set  for  both 
sexes.  The  work  in  the  lecture-room  began  at  once,  and  it  has 
continued  from  that  time  to  this.  Twenty-seven  women  began 
the  work  of  the  first  year,  but  two  were  obliged  to  give  it  up 
before  the  year  closed,  so  that  in  reality  the  classes  counted 
but  twenty-five.  That  number  has  increased  until  now  354  are 
enrolled  on  the  lists  of  Radcliffe  College. 

Every  year  the  writer  of  these  lines  has  made  a  report  to  the 
corporation.  In  the  report  for  the  fourth  yeaf  the  following 
words  were  used  :  — 

"  Too  great  stress  can  hardly  be  laid  upon  the  value  of  the  highest 
education  for  women  in  a  land  where  the  majority  of  the  teachers  in 
all  the  schools  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  Maine  to 
Texas  are  women.  In  our  own  State,  eighty-seven  per  cent,  of  the 
teachers  (according  to  the  latest  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Board 
of  Education)  are  women.  ...  It  does  not  take  a  very  careful  study 
of  the  colleges  of  New  England,  less  than  a  score,  to  show  that  the 
ratio  between  the  number  which  in  a  direct  way  give  assistance  to 
those  women  who  aim  to  qualify  themselves  for  high  educational  posi- 
tions and  those  which  do  not,  is  quite  the  reverse  of  that  existing  be- 
between  the  number  of  women  teachers  and  the  grand  total  occupying 


INTELLECTUAL  INDIFFERENTISM  ABSENT.       181 

places  in  the  profession.  In  this  fact  is  found  one  of  the  reasons  for 
the  low  rate  of  pay  with  which  women  generally  are  obliged  to  satisfy 
themselves.  As  the  opportunities  for  the  higher  education  within  the 
reach  of  women  increase,  the  number  of  them  able  to  compete  success- 
fully for  important  and  remunerative  positions  will  be  enlarged." 

In  the  same  'report  the  following  among  other  reasons  for 
the  writer's  interest  in  the  work  that  was  under  discussion  was 
given :  — 

*'  Women  seeking  opportunities  for  the  higher  education  naturally 
prefer  to  find  them  at  an  institution  which  is  allied  at  least  with  one 
established  and  carried  on  for  men,  because  they  think  that  there  they 
will  be  in  the  line  of  progress.  They  feel  that  on  the  perfecting  of 
methods  and  the  best  application  of  educational  forces  the  entire  body 
of  instructors  in  such  an  institution,  as  well  as  in  all  others  like  it, 
is  united.  Present  them  a  course  of  instruction  different  from  that 
offered  to  men,  and  they  do  not  eye  it  askance  because  they  think  it 
not  so  good,  but  because  it  is  probably  just  out  of  the  line  upon  which 
progress  and  improvement  are  to  be  expected.  This  is  one  of  the 
reasons  why  thoughtful  women  have  less  confidence  in  courses  of  in- 
struction specially  prepared  for  them  than  they  have  in  that  one  upon 
which  the  wisdom  of  men  has  for  generations  been  working,  and  is 
still  working." 

It  is  not,  therefore,  because  the  present  opportunities  and 
courses  of  study  of  Harvard  College  are  thought  the  best  that 
can  be  devised  for  women,  that  women  come  in  increasing 
numbers  to  share  them,  but  because  in  their  estimation  they 
represent  the  highest  stage  of  present  educational  progress  in 
our  land.  The  intellectual  character  of  the  women  who  came 
in  the  early  days  differed  little  from  that  of  those  who  have 
followed  thenr.  It  happens  that  we  have  on  record  the  views 
of  a  number  of  the  professors  on  this  important  subject.  Pro- 
fessor John  Williams  White  (Greek)  wrote,  "  I  have  met  uni- 
formly great  earnestness,  persistent  industry,  and  ability  of 
high  order.  It  is  an  inspiration  to  teach  girls  who  are  so 
bright  and  so  willing."  Professor  Louis  Dyer  (Greek),  now 
of  Oxford,  England,  said  :  "  I  have  been  most  struck  this  year 
in  my  philosophical  course  —  undertaken  in  the  absence  of  Pro- 
fessor Goodwin  —  by  the  entire  absence  of  intellectual  indiffer- 
entism  on  the  part  of  the  yoimg  ladies.  Their  questions  have 
been  most  intelligent,  and,  where  the  first  answer  did  not  satisfy 
them,  persistent,  —  an  encouraging  sign  that  they  are  unwilliug 


182  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

to  content  themselves  with  words."  Professor  Byerly  (mathe- 
matics) said :  "  I  have  found  the  spirit,  industry,  and  ability 
of  the  girls  admirable ;  indeed,  the  average  has  invariably  been 
higher  in  my  classes  in  the  '  Annex '  than  in  my  classes  in  the 
college,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  college  classes,  since  they 
are  in  elective  courses  in  a  subject  of  acknowledged  difficulty, 
have  been  necessarily  formed  of  picked  men."  Of  the  classes 
in  philosophy.  Professor  Palmer  wrote :  "  The  four  classes  that 
I  have  taught  there  have  in  each  case  shown  a  scholarship 
somewhat  higher  than  the  parallel  class  in  college.  .  .  .  The 
girls  being  keener  questioners,  I  have  usually  found  myself 
obliged  to  treat  my  subject  more  fundamentally  with  them  than 
when  I  have  discussed  it  with  my  college  classes."  Other  pro- 
fessors of  those  early  days  wrote  in  equally  strong  terms  with 
regard  to  the  students,  and  one  of  the  students  said  of  the 
advantages  of  the  Annex,  "  I  have  become  convinced,  in  my 
own  mind  at  least,  that  there  is  no  institution  for  women  in  our 
country  which  affords  so  finished  and  so  satisfactory  an  educa- 
tion as  is  offered  in  Cambridge.  In  the  first  place,  the  town, 
pervaded  with  an  atmosphere  of  study  and  culture,  and  rich  in 
its  associations,  seems  to  me  an  important  factor  in  a  liberal 
education,  as  well  as  the  home  and  social  life  which  the  students 
enjoy  there,  a  life  which  is  impossible  in  connection  with  a  dor- 
mitory system."  Thus  the  teachers  appreciated  the  students, 
and  the  students  appreciated  highly  the  advantages  that  were 
offered  them. 

In  this,  the  first  stage  of  the  work,  the  seven  ladies  and  their 
secretary  cared  for  the  business  affairs  of  the  enterprise,  while 
a  body  of  the  professors  which  had  Professor  Greenough  as 
chairman  looked  after  the  courses  of  study,  and  recommended 
the  candidates  for  the  certificates.  Degrees  were  not  given  to 
those  who  had  accomplished  the  work  for  which  degrees  were 
awarded  in  Harvard  College,  but  certificates,  which  stated  the 
facts.  It  may  be  said  by  way  of  anticipation,  that  these  certifi- 
cates have  been  exchanged  for  diplomas  since  Radcliffe  College 
was  created  by  the  legislature.  The  secretary  was  the  only 
officer  on  the  ground  at  that  time.  He  carried  out  the  votes  of 
the  "  Advisory  Board  "  of  professors  and  of  the  lady-managers, 
besides  attending  to  all  the  business.  To  him  all  applications 
were  addressed,  and  he  wrote  all  the  letters. 

As  the   numbers   increased,  the  quarters   at   first   engaged 


ROOMS  ON  APPIAN  WA  Y.  188 

at  No.  6  Appian  Way  proved  too  small,  and  other  rooms 
were  rented.  All  that  could  be  spared  by  the  family  were  first 
taken,  and  then  a  room  was  fitted  up  in  a  house  across  the 
street  as  a  laboratory.  Then  another  room  was  taken  in 
the  house  No.  5  Garden  Street  as  a  "  library."  Later,  an- 
other room  was  taken  in  this  house,  —  a  delightful  room,  —  in 
which  the  students  sat  about  in  easy  chairs  and  listened  to 
learned  lectures,  or  took  notes  on  the  great  tables  with  which 
the  room  was  well  supplied.  It  was  in  those  halcyon  days  that 
Mr.  John  Holmes,  who  occupied  the  house  numbered  5  Ap- 
pian Way,  had  pity  on  the  young  aspirants  for  collegiate  honors 
as  they  took  their  admission  examinations,  and  sent  over  the 
way  certain  refreshments  which  bore  a  likeness  to  those  which 
the  Council  of  Radcliffe  is  in  these  later  days  wont  to  supply 
from  the  funds  of  the  treasury.  On  one  occasion  a  guardian 
angel  in  the  form  of  a  mortal  woman  of  kindly  heart  came  day 
by  day  with  refreshments  for  two  of  the  candidates  under  her 
special  charge,  and  was  found  by  the  secretary  sitting  on  a 
hard  bench  in  the  Common  near  by,  suffering  the  hottest  rays 
of  the  July  sun,  thinking  that  her  swelterings  were  naught,  if 
only  the  girls  could  make  clear  their  title  to  a  Harvard  educa- 
tion !  Many  a  tale  could  be  told  of  those  primitive  days.  The 
"  Harvard  education  "  was  won. 

When  all  the  spare* rooms  on  Appian  Way  had  been  ex- 
hausted, a  building  became  a  necessity,  and  then  it  was  that 
Miss  Fay  of  her  own  accord  caUed  upon  Mrs.  Gilman  to  ask  if 
the  Annex  would  not  buy  her  homestead  for  its  future  quarters. 
The  family  which  had  so  long  occupied  the  old  home  had  grad- 
ually left  it,  and  now  it  was  at  the  disposition  of  the  "  experi- 
ment." The  hopes  that  we  had  been  almost  afraid  to  encourage 
in  the  days  before  we  were  daring  enough  to  even  speak  of  the 
plan  were  ready  to  be  realized.  It  was  with  feelings  that  can 
be  imagined  better  than  they  can  be  written  or  printed  that 
Mrs.  Gilman  reported  the  good  news.  The  offer  was  brought 
before  the  "  Corporation,"  for  in  anticipation  of  the  need  of 
real  estate  the  managers  had  become  a  corporation,  and  the 
Fay  House  with  its  surrounding  land  was  purchased.  Adjoin- 
ing land  has  since  been  added,  and  the  estate  now  comprises 
more  than  twice  as  many  square  feet  as  it  then  did. 

The  first  stage  in  the  history  that  we  are  following  ended  at 
the  time  that  Fay  House  was  purchased,  when  it  had  become  a 


184  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

necessity  to  begin  to  raise  a  fund  for  the  endowment  of  the 
institution.  The  ladies  and  certain  others  who  at  the  time  be- 
came associated  with  them  became  a  corporation  under  the 
general  statutes  of  Massachusetts,  October  16,  1882,  with  the 
title  "  The  Society  for  the  Collegiate  Instruction  of  Women," 
though  this  inconvenient  name  was  seldom  used,  the  nickname, 
"  Harvard  Annex,"  invented  by  a  student  of  the  college,  it  is 
said,  being  made  to  serve  instead,  in  all  except  formal  docu- 
ments and  official  utterances.  The  change  in  title,  however, 
caused  no  change  in  the  work  or  in  the  progress.  Things  went 
on  as  usual,  though  every  year  it  was  evident  that  the  new 
quarters  would  not  continue  to  suffice  for  the  growing  classes. 
Twice  Fay  House  has  been  enlarged.  At  first  the  old  wing  in 
the  rear  was  taken  off  and  an  addition  made  in  that  direction 
which  increased  the  capacity  of  the  building  twofold.  Again 
an  auditorium  was  made  on  the  Mason  Street  side  with  rooms 
above  and  below  it,,  for  lecture-rooms  and  other  purposes. 
These  additions  have  been  so  skillfully  designed  that  visitors 
are  not  able  to  find  the  line  that  divides  the  new  from  the  old, 
and  indeed,  they  often  take  the  staircase  for  a  construction  of 
the  "  colonial "  period,  though  it  is  a  creation  upon  which  the 
minds  and  taste  of  the  entire  corporation  and  of  the  architects 
were  brought  to  bear  but  a  few  years  ago,  A  notable  improve- 
ment in  the  premises  was  the  addition  of  the  third  story.  Miss 
Fay  had  changed  the  roof  some  years  before,  but  now  all  of  her 
work  was  taken  away,  and  a  new  floor  was  made  which  con- 
tains the.  library,  a  room  for  the  elegance  and  convenience  of 
which  the  corporation  is  indebted  to  the  generosity  of  Miss 
Longfellow.  It  is  the  most  charming  portion  of  the  edifice 
now. 

The  third  stage  in  the  work  is  marked  by  the  incorporation 
of  the  managers  as  Eadcliffe  College,  which  was  done  by  a 
special  act  of  the  legislature,  the  signature  of  the  governor 
having  been  affixed  to  it  March  23,  1894.  This  act  was  the 
subject  of  much  deliberation  both  within  and  without  the  halls 
of  legislation.  It  was  the  result  of  long  and  careful  consid- 
eration on  the  part  of  the  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard 
College  and  of  the  Overseers,  as  well  as  the  managers  of  the 
Society  for  the  Collegiate  Instruction  of  Women.  It  was  dis- 
cussed no  less  by  others  interested  in  the  welfare  of  women  in 
Boston  and  New  York,  and  many  opinions  were  expressed  both 


THE  HEALTH  OF  WOMEN  STUDENTS. 


185 


for  and  against  the  plan,  but  after  a  long  and  careful  hearing 
on  the  part  of  the  Committee  of  the  Legislature  on  Education 
the  step  was  taken  with  unanimity,  and  as  one  of  the  members 
of  the  committee  remarked,  both  sides  seemed  to  be  pleased 
with  the  result. 

The  growth  of  the  work  is  perhaps  shown  better  in  figures 
than  in  any  other  way.  The  following  table  exhibits  the  num- 
ber of  students  each  year  from  the  first,  with  the  receipts  from 
tuition-fees  and  the  expenses  for  salaries.  The  accounts  for 
the  current  year  are,  of  course,  not  made  up,  but  the  number 
of  students  is  already  over  350,  and  the  other  figures  will  show 
an  increase  over  all  previous  years. 


Tear. 

No  of  Stu- 
dents. 

Fees. 

Salaries. 

1879-80 

25 

$3,725.00 

$5,171.00 

1880-81 

47 

4,786.25 

6,363.32 

1881-82 

38 

5,017.50 

6,549.56 

1882-83 

41 

3,899.38 

7,778.48 

188a-84 

49 

5,581.25 

7,950.20 

1884-85 

55 

7,193.75 

8,725.00 

1885-86 

73 

9,661.25 

9,400.00 

1886-87 

90 

12,113.75 

13,525.00 

1887-88 

103 

13,475.00 

13,064.00 

1888-89 

115 

15,460.00 

14,575.00 

1889-90. 

142 

20,018.32 

18,925.00 

1890-91 

174 

25,035.00 

21,700.00 

1891-92 

241 

34,010.00 

27,686.00 

1892-93 

263 

37,240.00 

31,929.00 

1893-94 

255 

42,845.00 

34,112.50 

1894-95 

284 

49,626.83 

47,667.00 

In  writing  of  her  experiences  in  America,  Dr.  Anna  Kuhnow, 
of  Leipsic,  speaks  of  the  "  enviable  position  of  women  "  among 
us,  and  adds  that  she  missed  "  the  feeble  health  with  which  they 
are  so  widely  credited  in  Germany.  I  may  safely  assert,"  she 
continues,  "  that  among  these  college  students  were  the  health- 
iest women,  both  physically  and  mentally,  that  I  have  ever 
met."  This  emphatic  testimony  is  supported  by  the  experience 
of  Radcliffe  College. 

Our  record  closes  as  the  third  stage  in  the  history  of  Rad- 
cliffe opens.  It  is  an  interesting  point.  It  finds  the  college 
strong  in  the  affections  of  a  body  of  graduates  that  any  coUege 
might  well  be  proud  of,  many  of  whom  have  already  won  for 


186  RADCLIFFE  COLLEGE. 

themselves  honors  in  the  academic  world ;  it  is  sustained  by  the 
body  of  ladies  (with  the  loss  of  two,  and  with  some  additions) 
which  originally  became  responsible  for  it ;  many  of  the  pro- 
fessors who  began  with  the  work  are  yet  on  the  list  of  teachers, 
and  to  them  many  have  been  added ;  in  a  large  sense  the  ori- 
ginal end  has  been  attained,  for  Harvard  College  is  now  respon- 
sible for  it,  and  its  diplomas  bear  upon  them  the  great  seal  of 
the  older  institution  and  the  signature  of  its  president.  Rad- 
cliffe  College  has  the  authority  and  the  power,  with  the  power- 
ful aid  of  Harvard  College,  to  accomplish  all  that  can  be  at- 
tained for  the  best  education  of  women.  It  has  the  advantage 
of  the  experience  and  the  traditions  of  two  centuries  and  a  half. 


THE  PUBLIC   SCHOOLS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  frank  a.  hill, 
secretary  of  the  3iassachusetts  board  of  education. 

The  scope  of  this  article  does  not  permit  a  detailed  history 
of  the  public  schools  of  Cambridge.  It  is  limited,  therefore,  to 
the  following  themes :  — 

1.  The  "  faire  Grammar  Schoole  "  and  its  heirs,  with  some 
account  of  the  development  of  public  education  for  girls. 

2.  The  Cambridge  high  schools. 

3.  The  schools  of  Cambridge  fifty  years  ago. 

4.  The  public  school  system  of  Cambridge  to-day. 

"THE   FAIRE   GRAMMAR   SCHOOLE." 

Could  the  colonists  have  foreseen  the  great  things  that  were 
to  issue  from  their  humble  school  beginnings,  the  record  of  those 
beginnings  would  not  be  the  scant  and  incomplete  story  that 
has  come  down  to  us.  It  is  not  until  1643  that  we  find  any 
authentic  account  of  a  school  in  Cambridge.  In  that  year  the 
curtain  suddenly  rises  on  Elijah  Corlett's  "  faire  Grammar 
Schoole,"  by  the  side  of  the  college. 

There  is  abundant  reason  for  believing,  however,  that  Cam- 
bridge was  not  without  a  school  for  some  years  prior  to  this 
date.  We  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Boston  Latin  School  as  early 
as  1635,  in  the  pathetic  record  of  the  town  that  "  our  brother 
Philemon  Pormort  shall  be  intreated"  to  become  its  master. 
Salem,  Charlestown,  and  Dorchester  also  had  schools  before 
1640. 

The  conditions  for  the  early  existence  of  a  school  were  as 
favorable  in  Cambridge  as  elsewhere  in  the  colony.  When  the 
town  was  founded  in  1631,  the  intention  was  to  make  it  the  for- 
tified political  centre  of  the  colony.  It  speedily  became  instead 
an  important  residential  and  intellectual  centre.  A  writer  in 
1637  pictures  it  with  artless  exaggeration  as  one  of  the  "  neat- 


188  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

est  towns  "  in  New  England,  with  many  "  fair  structures  "  and 
"  handsome  contrived  streets."  The  inhabitants,  "  most  of 
them,"  he  adds,  were  "  very  rich."  We  know  from  other 
sources  that  many  of  them  had  scholarly  tastes.  Moreover,  Har- 
vard College  was  founded  in  1636,  opened  in  1638,  and  its  first 
class  of  nine  young  men  was  graduated  in  1642.  In  the  work 
of  fitting  boys  for  Harvard,  Cambridge  would  naturally  have 
had  an  early  and  prominent  share.  It  chimes  in  with  this  the- 
ory of  an  earlier  school  that  Mr.  Corlett,  when  we  first  hear  of 
him  in  1643,  was  already  in  the  possession  of  an  established  rep- 
utation as  a  teacher ;  he  "  had  very  well  approved  himself  for 
his  abilities,  dexterity  and  painfulnesse."  His  schoolhouse  — 
the  first  one  especially  built  for  him  in  1648,  not  by  the  town, 
but  by  President  Dunster  and  Edward  Goffe  —  was  on  the 
westerly  side  of  Holyoke  Street,  between  Harvard  and  Mount 
Auburn  streets.  At  one  time  there  were  in  his  "  lattin  schoole  " 
five  Indian  youths  fitting  for  college. 

In  1642  the  General  Court  made  it  the  duty  of  Cambridge 
as  of  other  towns  to  insist  that  parents  and  masters  should 
properly  educate  their  children,  and  to  fine  them  if  they  neg- 
lected to  do  so.  In  1647  the  Court  ordered  the  towns  to  ap- 
point teachers  for  the  children,  whose  wages  should  be  paid 
either  by  the  parents  or  masters  of  such  children,  or  by  the 
inhabitants  in  general,  as  the  majority  "  of  those  who  order  the 
prudentials  of  the  town  "  should  direct.  Mr.  Corlett  had  to 
look  to  the  parents  for  his  pay,  but  his  fees  from  this  source 
were  so  meagre  that  the  town  from  time  to  time  came  to 
his  rescue.  Once  it  sold  some  land  for  his  benefit,  without 
prejudice  "  to  the  cow  common ; "  occasionally  it  levied  a  tax 
of  a  few  pounds  "  for  his  encouragement ;  "  and  in  1684,  when 
he  had  grown  old  in  the  service,  —  it  was  only  two  years  before 
his  death,  —  it  voted  to  pay  him  annually  twenty  pounds  so 
long  as  he  should  continue  schoolmaster  "  in  this  place."  The 
General  Court  made  similar  grants  for  Mr.  Corlett's  relief,  so 
that  his  heart  was  touched,  as  he  himself  once  quaintly  said, 
by  their  "  remarkable  gentlenes  and  very  tender  dealings 
with  a  sad,  afflicted,  weake  man,  inconsiderate  and  rash  some- 
times." 

The  early  grammar  school  which  was  required  by  law  of  1647 
in  every  town  of  one  hundred  families  was  not  a  grammar  school 
in  the  modern  sense.     It  was  Latin  grammar  and  not  English 


THE  DAME  SCHOOLS.  189 

that  it  taught.  In  brief,  it  was  a  college  fitting  school.  While 
it  was  designed  by  law  for  "youth,"  it  was  exclusively  a  boys' 
school.  Girls  did  not  attend  it  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
idea  of  a  girl's  fitting  for  college,  to  say  nothing  of  her  going 
there,  would  have  shocked  the  colonists.  Indeed,  girls  did  not 
usually  attend  the  early  reading  and  writing  schools.  To  be 
sure,  the  law  of  1647  was  explicit,  that  after  "  the  Lord  hath 
increased "  a  town  to  fifty  householders,  "  one  within  their 
towne  "  should  be  appointed  "  to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall 
resort  to  him  to  write  and  reade ;  "  but  the  girls  did  not  gener- 
ally resort  to  him. 

Boston,  for  instance,  established  reading  and  writing  schools 
in  1682,  the  Latin  School  being  the  only  public  school  in  town 
down  to  that  time.  There  was,  however,  no  formal  provision 
for  girls  in  such  schools  until  October  19,  1789,  when  the 
town  voted  that  "  children  of  both  sexes  "  should  be  tausrht  in 
the  reading  and  writing  schools  of  their  newly  reorganized 
system.  Even  then  and  for  forty  years  thereafter  Boston 
girls  were  excluded  from  these  schools  from  October  to  April ; 
and  when  finally,  in  1828,  they  were  graciously  permitted  to 
attend  school,  like  the  boys,  all  the  year  round,  the  policy  of 
separating  the  sexes  was  begun,  —  a  policy  that  is  in  vogue 
to-day  in  many  grammar  schools  in  the  older  sections  of  the 
city  as  well  as  in  the  four  central  high  schools. 

Doubtless  there  were  girls  as  well  as  boys  in  the  early  "  dame 
schools."  These  were  private  schools  that  received  children  of 
the  kindergarten  age,  although  they  were  far  from  being  con- 
ducted in  the  kindergarten  spirit.  In  the  old  cemetery  near 
Harvard  Square  lies  the  body  of  one  of  these  useful  dames, 
Mrs.  Joanna  Winship,  who  died  in  1707.  The  tombstone  of 
slate  is  solemnly  decorated  with  crossbones,  cofiins,  and  a 
winged  head,  and  bears  the  following  quaint  inscription,  which 
is  correct  in  point  of  fact  and  sound  in  metre,  whatever  may 
be  thought  of  its  poetic  fire :  — 

"  This  good  school  dame 
No  longer  school  must  keep, 
Which  gives  us  cause 
For  children's  sake  to  weep." 

If  girls  received  other  education  than  that  of  the  dame 
schools  in  the  colonial  or  in  the  provincial  period,  it  was  usually 
in  private  schools  of  a  slightly  higher  grade  or  at  home,  or  they 


190  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

picked  it  up  in  such  contact  as  they  had  with  the  world.  In 
the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  no  educa- 
tion for  women  in  England.  Ladies  highly  born  and  bred,  and 
naturally  quick  witted,  could  scarcely  write  a  line  without  sole- 
cisms and  faults  in  spelling  that  would  "  shame  a  charity  girl." 
"  Our  forefathers  were  wise,"  said  Lady  Clarendon  in  1685, 
"  in  not  giving  their  daughters  the  education  of  writing."  "  I 
should  be  very  much  ashamed,"  she  added,  "  that  I  ever  learned 
Latin,  if  I  had  not  forgotten  it."  The  wife  of  President  John 
Adams,  born  in  1744,  said  that  female  education  in  her  day, 
even  in  the  best  families,  seldom  went  beyond  writing  and 
arithmetic,  and  that  "it  was  fashionable  to  ridicule  female 
learning." 

Girls  worked  their  way  into  the  public  schools  as  pupils  very 
much  as  women  worked  their  way  into  the  same  schools  as 
teachers.  At  first,  the  public  school  teachers  were  men  exclu- 
sively. Towards  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  the  town 
histories  of  Massachusetts  give  us  glimpses  of  women  taking 
charge  of  schools  here  and  there,  in  a  sporadic  way,  at  first  dur- 
ing the  summer  months,  and  then  all  the  year  round.  If  women 
were  to  teach,  it  was  meet  that  girls  should  study.  Thus  began 
the  slowly  rising  tide  of  sentiment  that  women  as  well  as  men 
had  minds  to  train  and  to  use  in  a  serious  sense,  —  a  tide  that 
is  obviously  nearing  its  flood  in  Cambridge,  since  we  have  in 
our  midst  to-day  —  our  fathers  would  have  stood  amazed  at  the 
prospect  —  women  training  boys  and  girls  for  college,  and  a 
college  wherein  women  are  trained  to  do  it. 

Corlett's  schoolhouse  on  Holyoke  Street,  built  by  private  en- 
terprise, came  into  possession  of  the  town  in  1660.  In  1670 
the  town  built  a  second  schoolhouse,  and  in  1700  a  third  one, 
on  the  same  site.  The  fourth  building  was  erected  on  Garden 
Street,  a  little  west  of  Appian  Way,  in  1769,  and  the  fifth  fol- 
lowed it  on  the  same  spot  in  1832.  In  1852  the  sixth  building 
was  erected  on  Brattle  Street,  and  is  occupied  to-day  by  the 
Washington  Grammar  School,  —  in  a  sense,  the  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  "  faire  Grammar  Schoole  "  of  1643. 

It  is  a  curious  history,  —  this  transformation  of  a  grammar 
school  of  the  colonial  type  to  a  grammar  school  of  the  modern 
type.  The  dates  of  the  nominal  transformation  may  be  assigned 
to  the  years  1845  and  1848,  the  change  of  1845  being  followed  by 
a  reaction,  and  the  change  for  a  finality  taking  place  three  years 


THE  EARLY  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL.  191 

later.  The  modification  in  character,  however,  had  been  going 
on  for  many  years.  Although  the  records  give  us  a  glimpse  of 
an  "  English  schoolmaster  "  as  early  as  1680  "  with  at  present 
but  three  scholars,"  it  is  only  a  glimpse.  There  was  a  time 
when  with  the  boys  studying  classical  subjects  there  began  to 
be  joined  other  boys  who  did  not  work  beyond  the  "  three  R's." 
Nearer  our  own  time  these  non-preparatory  boys  were  joined 
by  girls,  some  of  whom  still  later  had  the  audacity  to  venture 
upon  Latin  and  even  Greek  in  the  college  classes  of  the  school. 
It  was  doubtless  such  a  school  as  Edward  Everett  described 
in  his  address  at  the  dedication  of  the  Cambridge  High  School 
building,  June  27,  1848.  He  remembered  "  as  yesterday " 
(Everett  was  born  in  Dorchester  in  1794}  his  first  going  to 
the  village  school,  how  he  trudged  along  at  the  "  valiant  age 
of  three,"  one  hand  grasping  his  elder  sister's  apron,  and  the 
other  his  little  blue  paper-covered  primer,  and  how,  when  a 
traveler,  stranger,  or  person  in  years  passed  by,  they  were  wont 
to  draw  up  by  the  roadside  and  greet  him,  —  the  girls  with  a 
courtesy  and  the  boys  with  a  bow.  "  A  little  reading,  writing, 
and  ciphering,"  added  Everett,  "  a  very  little  grammar,  and 
for  those  destined  for  college  a  little  Latin  and  Greek,  very 
indifferently  taught,  were  all  we  got  at  a  common  town  school 
in  my  day." 

The  school  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  Elijah  Corlett's 
was  undoubtedly  a  grammar  school  for  a  long  time  in  a  double 
sense,  —  an  English  grammar  school  for  Old  Cambridge  and  a 
Latin  grammar  school  for  all  Cambridge  ;  and  in  popular  allu- 
sions it  was  spoken  of  as  a  grammar  school  sometimes  in  one 
sense  and  sometimes  in  the  other.  That  these  were  the  facts  in 
1832  appears  from  this  rule  of  the  school  committee  adopted 
December  7  of  that  year :  "  In  addition  to  these  studies  (cer- 
tain English  branches  mentioned  in  another  rule),  the  instruc- 
tor in  Grammar  School  No.  1  (the  Latin  Grammar  School  on 
Garden  Street)  will  teach  to  any  children  belonging  to  the  town 
the  rudiments  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  the 
studies  generally  preparatory  for  admission  to  college."  More- 
over, while  the  children  of  the  colonial  public  schools  were 
practically  of  one  sex,  it  had  come  to  be  clearly  understood 
long  before  1832  that  the  word  "children"  included  both  sexes, 
that  the  public  schools,  in  short,  were  as  much  for  girls  as  for 
boys ;  so  that  we  have  in  this  rule  of  1832  an  official  recogni- 


192  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

tion  of  what  had  been  gradually  coming  into  practice  in  Cam- 
bridge, —  co-education  in  high  school  subjects. 

Years  before  this  date  ambitious  girls  might  have  been  found 
here  and  there,  more  frequently  in  private  schools  than  in  public, 
working  close  up  to  the  college  doors,  although  it  was  hopeless 
for  them  to  enter  there,  like  Margaret  Fuller,  of  Cambridge- 
port,  subsequently  Countess  Ossoli,  who  in  1816,  at  the  age  of 
six,  was  studying  Latin  with  her  father,  and  whom  we  see  again 
nine  years  later  reciting  Greek  in  the  "  C.  P.  P.  G.  S.,"  that  is, 
in  the  Cambridge  Port  Private  Grammar  School,  —  a  school 
for  classical  instruction  where  Richard  Henry  Dana  and  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  were  among  her  schoolmates.  Here  was  co- 
education in  secondary  subjects,  though  not  in  a  public  school, 
as  early  as  1825.  In  the  same  year  a  high  school  for  girls 
was  opened  in  Boston.  Its  very  success  was  its  defeat.  It  was 
crowded  to  overflowing,  and  scores  were  rejected.  The  citi- 
zens became  alarmed.  The  threatened  expense  was  enormous. 
Moreover,  there  were  those  who  feared  that  girls  in  humble  life 
would  be  educated  beyond  their  station !  In  less  than  two 
years,  in  the  flush  of  prosperity,  the  school  was  voted  out  of 
existence,  not  to  be  revived  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Bishop 
Clark,  of  Rhode  Island,  informs  me  that  the  Lowell  High 
School,  which  was  founded  in  1831,  had  girls  as  well  as  boys 
in  its  membership  from  the  beginning.  He  was  the  first 
principal  of  the  school,  and  speaks,  therefore,  with  authority. 
New  Bedford  opened  a  high  school  for  both  sexes  earlier  still. 
Of  the  fourteen  high  schools  reported  to  be  in  existence  in 
1838  in  Massachusetts,  there  were  several  where  co-education 
had  been  the  rule  for  years.  The  higher  education  of  girls 
was  in  the  air.  It  was  as  much  a  factor  in  the  conditions  that 
led  to  the  development  of  high  schools  as  a  product  of  that 
development. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  so  very  surprising  after  all,  —  the  meta- 
morphosis that  came  to  the  Latin  Grammar  School  on  Garden 
Street,  Corlett's  old  school,  in  1840,  for  in  that  year  it  was 
divided,  the  boys  remaining  on  Garden  Street  and  the  girls 
going  to  the  Auburn  School,  in  School  Court,  now  known  as 
Farwell  Place,  the  schoolhouse  for  which  was  built  in  1838. 
The  girls  were  placed  under  a  classical  instructor,  but  not  the 
boys,  "  the  girls  being  more  advanced  than  many  of  the  boys  ;" 
and  this  school  during  its  brief  existence  was  known  as  the 


ELIJAH  CORLETT'S  SCHOOL.  193 

Auburn  Female  High  School,  although  there  were  also  in  it 
misses  of  lower  grades. 

From  1840  to  1845  the  girls  of  Old  Cambridge  fared  better 
than  the  boys  so  far  as  secondary  instruction  was  concerned  ; 
but  the  citizens  chafing  somewhat  under  the  disadvantages  of 
the  boys,  the  Auburn  School  in  1845  was  made  a  high  school 
for  both  sexes,  and  the  Garden  Street  School,  known  thereafter 
as  the  Washington  School,  a  grammar  school,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  exclusively  modern  sense,  for  both  sexes.  There  was 
some  opposition  to  bringing  the  sexes  together  in  this  way, 
but  Rev.  William  A.  Stearns,  chairman  of  the  school  commit- 
tee and  subsequent!}^  president  of  Amherst  College,  voiced  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  the  committee  that  it  was  wise  to  do  so. 
"  In  all  the  other  schools  of  the  town,"  he  said,  "  boys  and  girls 
meet  together  every  day  without  injury,  we  believe,  to  the 
morals  of  either."  The  evils  feared,  if  they  once  existed,  had 
"long  since  been  entirely  banished  from  them."  "Children  in 
our  high  and  grammar  schools  [those  of  Cambridgeport  and 
East  Cambridge]  are  as  decidedly  delicate  and  respectful  in 
their  treatment  of  each  other  as  any  similar  classes  in  our  adult 
population."  Nevertheless,  there  were  parents  who  withdrew 
their  daughters  from  the  Auburn  High  School  and  the  Wash- 
ington Grammar  School,  whereupon,  in  1846,  for  reasons  of 
economy,  the  two  schools  were  united  in  the  Auburn  building 
under  the  name  of  the  "  Auburn  Grammar  and  High  School." 
Thus  Elijah  Corlett's  school  was  once  more  under  one  roof,  — 
partly  a  grammar  school  in  the  old  sense,  and  partly  a  grammar 
school  in  the  new  sense. 

In  1848,  there  was  another  and  final  parting  of  company, 
the  high  school  classes  being  transferred  to  the  central  high 
school,  in  Cambridgeport,  and  the  other  classes  remaining 
under  the  name  of  the  Auburn  Grammar  School.  In  1851, 
the  Auburn  building  and  the  Auburn  School  entered  upon  a 
period  of  travel,  the  building  going  first  to  North  Avenue,  and 
finally  to  Concord  Avenue,  where  it  stands  to-day  as  the  Dun- 
ster  School,  the  school  meanwhile  moving  into  Lyceum  Hall, 
then  into  its  old  building  again  as  it  stood  rejuvenated  on 
North  Avenue,  then  into  the  vestry  of  the  Baptist  church  that 
once  stood  near  the  present  college  gymnasium,  and  finally,  in 
June,  1852,  into  its  new  quarters  on  Brattle  Street,  where  it 
became  known  once  more  as  the  Washington  Grammar  School, 


194  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

and  where  it  has  remained  to  this  day.  Thus  at  length  came 
to  rest  the  perturbed  spirit  of  Elijah  Corlett's  transformed,  dis- 
membered, and  wandering  school,  not  quite  sure  but  it  ought  to 
claim  a  burial  urn  in  the  Cambridge  High  School,  or  in  one 
or  the  other  of  its  branches,  but  content,  on  the  whole,  to  be 
known  as  the  loyal  ancestral  shade  of  the  Washington  Grammar 
School.  This  is  the  reason  why  a  brownstone  tablet  in  the 
outer  wall  of  the  Washington  building  tells  the  reader  that 
that  school  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  "faire  Grammar 
Schoole"of  1643. 

THE   CAMBRIDGE  HIGH    SCHOOLS. 

In  1838  a  high  school  was  organized  in  Cambridgeport  for  the 
entire  town,  in  a  building  erected  for  it  at  the  corner  of  Broad- 
way and  Winsor  Street.  Its  first  teacher  was  Edward  F. 
Barnes.  This  school,  so  I  am  informed  by  John  Livermore, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  school  committee  as  early  as  1843, 
had  girls  as  well  as  boys  from  its  start.  It  was  not  convenient 
of  access  either  for  East  Cambridge  or  for  Old  Cambridge. 
Moreover,  it  did  not  stand  well  in  the  graces  of  Old  Cambridge. 
For  two  centuries  the  classical  instruction  of  the  town  had  had 
its  home  there  under  the  eaves  of  the  college.  Corlett's  tree 
was  not  to  be  pulled  up  by  the  roots  and  set  out  in  a  new  and 
distant  part  of  the  town  without  a  protest.  Accordingly,  the 
high  school  of  1838,  although  it  was  the  town  high  school  for 
five  years,  drew  its  pupils  mainly  from  Cambridgeport. 

In  1843,  the  Otis  schoolhouse,  "  quite  a  magnificent  struc- 
ture," was  completed  for  East  Cambridge,  and  on  its  upper 
floor  was  opened  a  high  and  grammar  school  with  Justin  A. 
Jacobs  and  Miss  Almira  Seymour  as  teachers.  At  the  same 
time,  Richard  T.  Austin  and  Miss  L.  M.  Damon  were  teachers 
in  the  "  Female  High  School "  of  Old  Cambridge.  Thus,  in 
1843,  the  three  sections  or  wards  of  the  town  had  each  its  high 
school,  with  a  man  for  its  principal  and  a  woman  to  assist  him. 
The  high  school  of  Ward  One,  as  we  have  seen,  was  for  girls. 
Inasmuch  as  it  also  contained  girls  of  grammar  school  gi-ades, 
it  was  as  often  called  a  high  and  grammar  school  as  a  high 
school.  The  high  schools  of  Wards  Two  and  Three  were  for 
both  sexes,  that  of  Ward  Two  being  the  only  one  in  the  town 
not  associated  with  grammar  school  pupils. 

In  1847,  the  plan  of  uniting  the  high  school  pupils  of  the 


A  HIGH  SCHOOL.  195 

three  wards  was  revived.  A  high  school  for  the  city  (Cam- 
bridge had  ceased  to  be  a  town  May  4,  1846)  was  opened  Octo- 
ber 4  of  that  year  in  the  high  school  building  of  Cambridge- 
port,  with  Elbridge  Smith  as  master  and  Miss  N.  W.  Manning 
as  assistant.  Seventy-four  pupils  were  admitted,  all  but  one 
from  the  "  Port "  and  the  "  Point."  The  single  exception  was 
the  mayor's  daughter  from  Old  Cambridge.  Members  of  the 
city  council  from  Old  Cambridge  had  said  in  substance  to  their 
associates,  "  Place  your  high  school  where  you  choose,  we  shall 
make  no  use  of  it."  This  attitude,  however,  was  not  long  main- 
tained. In  June,  1848,  the  high  school  of  Old  Cambridge  was 
closed,  and  in  the  following  September  its  pupils  took  their 
seats  with  the  high  school  pupils  of  the  rest  of  the  city.  Thus 
that  classical  instruction  which  began  in  "  the  faire  Grammar 
Schoole "  more  than  two  hundred  years  before,  after  many 
vicissitudes  and  transformations,  was  finally  switched  off  from 
the  lineal  successor  of  that  school,  and  merged  in  a  high  school 
that  had  come  into  existence  before  this  diversion  took  place. 
This  was  the  begiiming  of  the  Cambridge  High  School,  in  the 
sense  of  its  being  in  reality  the  high  school  for  the  entire  city. 
The  ideas  that  had  long  and  fruitlessly  sought  to  make  the  high 
school  organized  in  Cambridgeport  in  1838  a  high  school  for 
the  town  rather  than  for  Ward  Two  had  at  last  triumphed. 
One  happy  result  of  the  triumph  was  the  reduction  of  sectional 
jealousies  and  the  growth  of  more  sympathetic  relations  between 
the  somewhat  isolated  villages  that  made  up  the  city  of  that 
time.  The  school  started  under  propitious  skies.  It  began  in 
a  new  building  erected  for  it  at  the  corner  of  Amory  and  Sum- 
mer streets,  Edward  Everett,  president  of  Harvard  College, 
giving  the  dedicatory  address,  —  an  eloquent  and  inspiring 
effort.  There  were  at  once  overflowing  numbers.  The  school 
committee,  with  stringent  standards  of  admission  in  mind,  had 
asked  for  a  building  for  60  pupils.  The  Common  Council, 
taking  a  larger  look  at  the  future,  provided  for  108.  The  pub- 
lic, heedless  of  them  both,  furnished  at  the  July  examination  for 
admission  107  pupils,  41  boys  and  66  girls,  and  in  September, 
when  the  school  opened,  31  more. 

In  1864  the  high  school  moved  into  its  third  home  at  the 
corner  of  Broadway  and  Fayette  Street,  —  at  that  time  one  of 
the  best  equipped  and  most  elegant  schoolhouses  in  the  State. 

In  1886,  the  high  school  was  divided,  its  classical  depart- 


196  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

ment  becoming  the  Cambridge  Latin  School,  and  its  remaining 
departments  the  Cambridge  English  High  School.  The  Latin 
School  was  transferred  to  the  Lee  Street  church,  which  had  been 
fitted  up  to  receive  it.  The  English  High  School  retained  the 
old  building.  The  separation  took  place  March  1,  1886,  both 
schools  continuing  in  charge  of  William  F.  Bradbury  until 
September  of  that  year,  when  Frank  A.  Hill  entered  upon  his 
duties  as  head  master  of  the  English  High  School,  Mr.  Brad- 
bury continuing  as  head  master  of  the  Latin  School. 

In  1892  the  English  High  School  moved  into  its  present 
commodious  and  beautifid  building  on  Broadway,  between 
Trowbridge  and  Ellery  streets.  This  structure  was  erected  on 
land  presented  to  the  city  by  Frederick  H.  Rindge  and  at  a  cost 
to  the  city  of  $230,000. 

In  September,  1888,  the  Cambridge  Manual  Training  School 
for  Boys,  founded  and  maintained  by  Mr.  Rindge,  and  placed 
under  the  superintendence  of  Harry  Ellis,  was  opened  to  the 
boys  of  the  English  High  School. 

As  soon  as  the  building  at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Fay- 
ette Street  was  vacated  by  the  English  High  School,  it  was 
remodeled  and  put  into  excellent  order  for  the  Latin  School, 
which  took  possession  of  it  September  6,  1892.  The  growth  of 
the  school  has  made  it  necessary  to  plan  a  new  building  for  it, 
to  cost  not  far  from  $250,000,  and  to  stand  on  land  adjacent 
to  the  English  High  School  building  and  the  Public  Library. 

Upon  the  completion  of  this  building,  Cambridge  will  be  able 
to  point  to  a  decade  of  high  school  development  unparalleled 
in  the  history  of  the  Commonwealth,  —  a  decade  at  whose  be- 
ginning we  see  two  high  schools  chafing  under  cramped  condi- 
tions, without  a  suspicion  of  interest  in  a  certain  pasture  not  far 
away  in  Old  Cambridge,  where  the  cows  were  wont  to  feed  in 
summer  and  the  boys  and  girls  to  skate  in  winter,  but  at  whose 
end  we  find  the  pasture  transformed  to  a  park,  and  the  park 
dignified  and  adorned  by  the  most  complete  and  varied  group 
of  educational  structures  in  Massachusetts.  Grounds,  build- 
ings, and  improvements  will  represent,  all  told,  an  investment 
of  nearly  a  million  dollars,  —  in  part  the  present  and  prospec- 
tive gifts  of  a  gentleman  who  thus  munificently  expresses  his 
love  for  his  old  home,  and  in  part  the  munificent  response  of 
the  city  to  these  gifts  and  to  her  sense  of  high  regard  for  the 
welfare  of  her  youth. 


THE  RECORD  OF  THE  PAST.  197 

The  close  of  the  decade,  it  may  be  quietly  added  in  passing, 
will  also  see  Old  Cambridge  once  more  in  possession  of  that 
secondary  instruction  whose  transfer  from  her  borders  she  so 
strenuously  opposed  from  1838  to  1848. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  since  1886  the  two  high  schools  have 
each  doubled  in  number,  neither  checking  in  any  way  the  prog- 
ress of  the  other. 

CAMBRIDGE   SCHOOLS   FIFTY   TEARS   AGO. 

It  is  idle  to  claim  that  schools  are  ever  free  from  faults  or 
that  they  are  ever  as  good  as  they  can  be.  Perfect  schools 
require  the  impossible  conjunction  of  innumerable  happy  con- 
ditions in  innumerable  cases.  The  absence  of  one  of  these  con- 
ditions in  a  single  case  means,  to  that  extent,  friction,  estrange- 
ment, soreness,  or  failure.  Among  these  conditions  are  a  wise 
and  generous  public  attitude  towards  schools,  suitable  buildings 
and  equipment,  able,  tactful,  and  inspiring  teachers,  intelligent 
and  helpful  parents,  well-born  and  well-bred  children,  concert 
of  views  as  to  the  aims,  subjects,  and  methods  of  education, 
loyal  and  steady  devotion  from  all  parties  to  the  work  of  the 
school,  and  so  on.  More  of  these  conditions  are  realized  in 
Cambridge  to-day  than  fifty  years  ago.  With  admitted  room 
for  improvement,  Cambridge  schools  offer  to-day  as  fine  facili- 
ties for  a  sound  education  as  any  in  the  Commonwealth  or  in 
the  country.  Much  of  our  present  development  is  the  fruit  of 
what  was  said  and  done  fifty  years  ago. 

Dipping  at  once  into  the  record  of  the  past  and  following 
no  order  but  the  suggestions  of  that  record,  we  learn  from  the 
school  committee  of  1343  that  show  exhibitions  are  injurious, 
as  striving  for  appearances  more  than  for  realities,  for  display 
more  than  for  usefulness.  In  the  same  year  teachers'  meetings 
are  held  weekly,  and  members  of  the  committee  are  sometimes 
present.  Improvements  in  one  school  thus  become  known  to 
the  other  schools,  and  errors  in  teaching  are  less  likely  to 
become  chronic.  Corporal  punishment  is  reported  as  dimin- 
ishing. One  master  has  gone  so  far  as  to  lay  it  aside  alto- 
gether, —  a  seemingly  dangerous  experiment,  —  but  the  order 
has  improved,  the  pupils  are  more  attached  to  their  teacher, 
and  greater  progress  in  study  has  been  made.  More  attention 
is  paid  to  reading  than  formerly.  It  is  important  that  good 
habits  of  reading  should  be  formed  in  the  primary  schools. 


198  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

The  duty  of  parents  to  converse  correctly  with  their  children, 
to  listen  to  their  reading,  to  make  the  fireside  the  ally  of  the 
schoolroom,  is  emphasized.  The  attendance  of  children  at 
school  is  very  irregular.  It  has  been  improved  somewhat  by 
requiring  children  to  bring  excuses  from  their  parents  before 
being  allowed  to  take  their  seats.  Such  works  as  Sparks's 
Lives  of  Washington  and  Franklin  should  be  placed  in  school 
libraries,  —  an  invaluable  substitute  for  juvenile  romances  and 
cheap  newspaper  novels. 

During  the  year  1843,  it  appears  that  the  school  committee 
made  five  hundred  and  eighty-thi'ce  visits  to  the  schools.  The 
appropriation  for  schools  was  $8,500.  The  expense  of  the 
schools  is  indeed  great,  say  the  committee,  but  great  good  is 
received  in  return.  There  is  no  sect  or  party  arrayed  against 
them.     Families  come  to  Cambridge  because  of  her  schools. 

From  the  report  of  1844,  it  appears  that  the  schools  are 
classified  into  five  grades  or  kinds,  —  alphabet,  primary,  middle, 
grammar,  and  high.  In  the  high  and  grammar  schools,  the 
cost  of  instruction  per  pupil  was  $9.88  for  the  year ;  in  the 
middle  schools,  $2.96 ;  and  in  the  schools  below,  $2.81. 

With  all  their  painstaking  and  in  spite  of  the  admonition  of 
the  town,  the  committee  of  1843  overran  their  appropriation 
by  $263.  "  '  Cut  your  coat  according  to  your  cloth '  is  indeed 
a  good  general  maxim  ;  but  it  is  certainly  better  to  get  a  little 
more  cloth  than  to  spoil  the  garment." 

It  is  interesting  in  this  fiftieth  year  of  Cambridge  as  a  city 
to  note  a  certain  tendency  among  many  intelligent  people  to 
compare  the  schooling  of  the  present  unfavorably  with  that  of 
the  past.  Admitting  the  real  superiority'  of  the  old  schooling  in 
some  points  or  in  some  localities,  for  all  change  from  the  past  is 
not  necessarily  for  the  better,  we  are  nevertheless  sure  that  some 
of  the  alleged  superiority  exists  only  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
unwittingly  carry  into  their  maturity  the  sincere  but  poor  little 
school  judgments  of  their  childhood  or  who,  in  an  equally  art- 
less way,  project  the  attainments  of  their  maturity  into  the 
schools  of  their  childhood,  as  if,  forsooth,  such  attainments  were 
then  and  there  fully  fledged.  How  common  the  remark  of  the 
critics  that  our  pupils  to-day  are  poorer  spellers  than  were  those 
of  fifty  years  ago !  But  note  the  plaint  of  the  school  committee 
of  1844  :  "  A  few  of  the  schools  excel  in  reading,  while  most  of 
them,  both  in  reading  and  spelling,  are  lamentably  deficient. 


SCHOOLHOUSES  OVERHAULED.  199 

.  .  .  There  is  an  unaccountable  reluctance  on  the  part  of  both 
teachers  and  scholars  to  use  the  spelling-book,  —  a  book  which, 
in  the  days  of  their  fathers,  was  ever  acknowledged  '  the  only 
sure  guide  to  the  English  Tongue.^  .  .  .  The  committee  are 
unanimously  of  opinion  that  the  attainments  in  this  branch  are 
altogether  inferior  to  what  was  witnessed  in  our  schools  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago." 

The  committee  of  1844  protest  also  against  many  studies, 
causing  superficial  knowledge,  and  increasing  not  only  the 
expenses  of  education,  but  habits  of  inaccuracy,  slackness,  and 
inattention,  —  a  kind  of  protest  with  which  we  are  familiar  in 
our  time,  the  smoke,  as  it  were,  of  the  irrepressible  conflict  be- 
tween two  ideas,  that  of  thoroughness  and  that  of  breadth,  each 
educationally  sound,  although  either  pushed  to  extremes  crowds 
the  other  to  the  wall. 

The  crying  need  of  the  schools,  say  the  committee  of  1844, 
is  good  teachers.  The  qualities  wanted  in  them  are  of  a  high 
order,  —  an  assemblage  of  attainments  and  virtues  seldom  found 
in  one  person.  In  case  a  teacher  fails,  however  worthy  or  needy 
he  may  be,  it  is  better  that  he  should  suffer  through  loss  of 
position  than  that  a  whole  school  through  him  should  waste  or 
lose  its  golden  days.  The  evils  of  irregularity  in  1844  are  very 
great,  it  not  being  unusual  for  a  quarter  of  the  pupils  to  be 
absent  from  school  at  one  time.  Collisions  between  parents  and 
teachers  in  matters  of  discipline  have  been  comparatively  rare. 
It  is  hoped  that  teachers  will  continue  to  have  the  countenance 
of  all  good  men  in  their  endeavors  to  banish  lying,  obscen- 
ity, profanity,  and  every  other  vice  and  impropriety  from  the 
schools. 

In  1846,  it  appears  that  many  schools  are  too  large,  and  that 
teachers  cannot  hear  as  many  lessons  as  the  scholars  are  able  to 
learn.  Hence  idleness,  lack  of  quiet,  and  lack  of  discipline. 
Eighty  or  ninety  pupils  tax  a  teacher  unduly. 

The  schoolhouses  this  year  received  a  through  overhauling 
from  the  committee.  One  schoolhouse  is  well  built,  but  has  no 
ventilation.  Another  is  "  truly  a  noble  building,"  but  not  with- 
out defects,  for  although  one  room  is  well  ventilated  and  in 
good  order,  another  has  a  floor  badly  shrunken,  burned,  and 
unclean,  while  certain  plastering  is  falling,  and  the  cellar  con- 
tains water.  Other  buildings  come  in  for  a  denunciation  that 
is  merciless :  they  are  "  old,  leaky  and  rotten  ;  "  "  shamefully 


200  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

marked,  dirty,  and  uninviting ; "  fences  marred  with  words  and 
cuts  "  too  recent  to  allow  any  apology  for  the  depravity  which 
occasioned  them  ;  "  a  "  magnificent  structure,"  —  "  an  ornament 
to  the  town  if  it  can  be  preserved  from  unseemly  mutilations," 
and  yet  unskillfully  or  unfaithfully  built,  with  a  leaky  roof,  no 
gutters,  water  in  the  cellar,  and  dampness  threatening  to  health  ; 
a  building  uncomely  and  shamefully  disfigured  without  and 
within,  and  yet,  "  for  a  wonder,  well  ventilated ;  "  "  the  worst 
in  town,  a  dirty  looking  affair,  presenting  a  melancholy  con- 
trast to  that  physical  and  moral  cleanness  which  our  common 
schools  are  expected  to  secure ; "  and  so  on,  with  mingled 
praise  and  censure,  to  the  end  of  the  list. 

As  a  result  of  this  fearless  presentation,  a  general  purifica- 
tion and  renovation  of  the  school  buildings  began.  There  has 
been  a  steady  advance  in  schoolhouse  conditions,  until  to-day 
the  evils  that  grieved  good  people  a  half -century  ago  are  nearly, 
but  not  quite,  gone.  A  great  building  like  that  of  the  English 
High  School,  with  hundreds  using  it  daily,  kept  with  the  clean- 
liness of  a  well-kept  private  house,  with  scarcely  a  pencil  mark 
or  trace  of  unseemly  scribbling  or  hacking  about  it  after  years 
of  occupancy,  its  lawns  respected  and  the  tulips  and  pansies 
blooming  undisturbed  in  the  open  about  it,  —  such  a  vision 
sixty  years  ago  would  have  seemed  a  millennial  dream.  And 
yet  such  conditions  are  becoming  the  rule  where  once  they 
were  striking  exceptions. 

In  1844  there  were  parents  who  did  not  take  kindly  to  writ- 
ing excuses  for  tardy  or  absent  children,  and  some  of  them 
betook  themselves  to  sending  saucy  words  to  the  teachers  in 
such  notes.  "  If  the  regulation  is  injudicious,"  say  the  commit- 
tee, "  the  blame  should  rest  with  us  who  made  it,  and  not  with 
the  teachers." 

"While  the  improvement  of  the  schools  in  1844  was  commend- 
able, there  were  exceptions.  "  Some  children  have  a  habit  of 
always  behaving  a^  bad  as  they  can  upon  every  introduction  of 
a  new  teacher.  In  some  instances,  one  or  two  whole  quarters 
have  been  nearly  lost  by  this  means."  Parents  were  held  by 
the  committee  as  partially  responsible  for  such  rebellions,  which 
sometimes  were  not  quelled  until  the  refractory  had  received 
the  severest  punishment  or  been  expelled  from  school.  Not 
long  before,  Horace  Mann  had  reported  that  more  than  300 
schools  in  the  State  had  been  closed  in  a  single  year,  because  of 


IMPROVED  MORALS.  201 

the  incompetency  of  teachers  or  the  insubordination  of  pupils. 
Cambridge,  in  1844,  had  not  completely  emerged  from  this 
mania  of  school  insurrection,  the  sad  product  of  false  and 
strained  relations  between  the  teacher  and  the  taught,  but  the 
good  work  of  deliverance  was  well  under  way  at  that  time. 
"  Scolding  and  fretting,  angry  and  reproachful  words,  are  fast 
giving  place  to  milder  and  more  powerful  modes  of  influence. 
It  is  a  pleasure  to  visit  schools  where  a  benevolent  teacher  pre- 
sides, with  easy  dignity,  over  an  orderly  group  of  cheerful  and 
industrious  children,  and  infuses  into  their  susceptible  minds  an 
affection  for  each  other,  with  a  love  of  study  and  of  God." 

In  March,  1846,  the  report  of  the  school  committee,  the  last 
for  the  town,  begins  thus :  "  The  School  Committee  of  Cam- 
bridge render  thanks  to  Almighty  God,  and  congratulate  their 
fellow-citizens,  in  view  of  the  present  unusual  prosperity  of  the 
schools."  The  year  1845  was  one  of  marked  activity  and  prog- 
ress. The  scathing  review  of  the  schoolhouses  a  year  or  two 
before  had  borne  fruit.  Repairs  were  made,  houses  cleansed 
and  some  painted,  offensive  marks  removed,  and  a  substantial 
beginning  made  towards  better  schoolhouse  conditions.  Music 
was  introduced  as  a  science  for  discipline ;  as  an  attainment,  if 
not  accomplishment ;  and  as  a  means  for  refreshment,  good 
order,  and  right  feeling.  The  ground  was  taken,  in  the  matter 
of  school  work,  that  school  study  of  a  severe  sort  is  less  injuri- 
ous probably  to  the  body,  the  mind,  and  the  morals  "  than  that 
listlessness  and  idleness  in  which  the  intervals  between  recita- 
tions are  too  often  worn  away."  More  time  should  be  given 
the  children  for  recreation  out  of  school,  more  work  to  do  in 
school. 

In  morals  a  marked  progress  was  noted  for  1845.  The  habit 
of  defacing  buildings  was  nearly  broken  up ;  public  sentiment 
had  developed  strongly  against  such  abuse.  Profane  and  impure 
language  had  diminished.  The  habit  of  truth-telling  had  gained 
ground.  The  duty  of  reverence  was  strongly  urged  in  the  report 
of  1845,  —  reverence  to  parents,  to  one's  self,  to  teachers,  to 
magistrates,  and  to  all  superiors  in  years  and  goodness. 

Classes  were  still  too  large  for  the  teachers.  Cambridge  was 
still  outstripped  by  twenty-three  towns  and  cities  of  the  Com- 
monwealth in  the  amount  of  money  raised  per  child  for  school- 
ing, Somerville  raising  87.64,  Boston  $6.76,  Chelsea  $5.58, 
Charlestown  15.09,  Newton  $4.26,  and  Cambridge  $3.95. 


202  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

Still,  Cambridge  had  risen  from  the  thirty-fifth  place  the  pre- 
ceding year  to  the  twenty-fourth,  and  that  was  cause  for  con- 
gratulation. The  committee,  however,  did  not  think  "  it  should 
be  an  object  of  ambition  what  town  will  expend  the  most  money, 
but  what  town  can  produce  the  best  schools." 

Here  the  records  must  be  dropped.  Even  in  their  fullness, 
the  story  they  tell  is  somewhat  meagre ;  and  it  is  only  a  snatch 
or  two  from  that  story  that  is  given  here.  It  is  not  the  story  of 
a  golden  age  in  our  school  history,  except  so  far  as  that  age 
might  have  lived  in  the  dreams  of  men  who  sought  to  advance 
the  schools.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  graphic,  high-toned, 
and  fearless  reports  of  William  A.  Stearns  ^  and  his  associates 
did  wonders  in  quickening  the  town's  educational  conscience, 
and  in  toning  up  the  schools  to  the  better  standards  of  the 
times.    . 

THE   SCHOOLS   OF   CAMBRIDGE  TO-DAY. 

The  School  Committee  of  Cambridge  numbers  fifteen  mem- 
bers. The  term  of  service  is  three  years,  one  third  of  the 
committee  retiring  each  year.  Thus  the  board  is  practically  a 
continuous  body,  always  containing  a  majority  that  have  had 
experience  in  school  management.  The  mayor  is  chairman  ex 
officio.  The  best  men  and  women  of  the  city  respond  freely  to 
the  public  demand  for  their  service  on  the  board,  and  the  list 
of  past  members  contains  many  a  name  of  state  and  even 
national  reputation.  This  service  has  been  admirably  supple- 
mented and  strengthened  by  the  gentlemen  who  have  served  as 
superintendents  of  schools  since  1868 :  Edwin  B.  Hale,  from 
1868  until  1874,  and  Francis  Cogswell,  from  1874  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  Whether  guiding  or  executing  progressive  educa- 
tional policies,  Mr.  Cogswell  has  shown  rare  wisdom  and  tact, 
and  throughout  his  prolonged  experience  has  enjoyed  the  unin- 
terrupted confidence  of  his  committee,  the  schools,  and  the 
public. 

It  is  usually  understood  that  the  first  superintendent  of 
schools  in  Massachusetts  was  appointed  in  Springfield  in  1840. 
Cambridge  records  show,  however,  that  the  town  warrant  of 
March  17,  1836,  contained  an  article  with  reference  to  employ- 
ing a  superintendent  of  schools,  that   the   school  committee, 

^  Rev.  William  A,  Stearns  was  the  president  of  Amherst  College,  from 
1854  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1876.  —  Editor. 


A    WIDE  RANGE.  203 

April  15,  1836,  voted  to  employ  one  of  their  number  in  that 
capacity,  that  Josiah  Hayward  was  accordingly  elected  super- 
intendent, April  25,  1836,  and  that  his  salary  was  fixed  at 
$250.  The  office  was  not  kept  up  long  in  Cambridge ;  but  in 
Springfield  it  was  permanent,  so  that  Springfield's  claim  to 
priority  has  a  pretty  solid  basis. 

The  high  school  system  of  Cambridge  embraces  practically 
three  schools,  —  the  Cambridge  Latin  School,  under  the  head 
mastership  of  William  F.  Bradbury,  with  14  teachers  and  388 
pupils ;  the  Cambridge  English  High  School,  under  the  head 
mastership  of  Ray  Greene  Huling,  with  21  teachers  and  674 
pupils ;  and  the  Cambridge  Manual  Training  School  for  Boys, 
under  the  superintendency  of  Charles  H.  Morse,  with  10  regu- 
lar teachers,  3  special  instructors,  and  172  boys,  these  boys 
being  a  portion  of  the  674  pupils  in  the  English  High  School. 
These  are  the  figures  for  December,  1895. 

Our  schools  give  a  wide  range  of  choice  to  ambitious  youth. 
Does  a  young  man  wish  to  fit  for  Harvard,  a  young  woman  for 
Radcliffe  ?  It  can  be  thoroughly  done  in  the  Latin  School, 
which  has  a  five  years'  course  for  the  purpose.  Promising  stu- 
dents can  do  the  work  in  four  years.  Preparation  for  either  of 
these  colleges  will  answer  for  any  corresponding  college  that 
may  be  selected.  Has  the  pupil  in  thought  the  Institute  of 
Technology  or  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School  ?  He  may  pre- 
pare himself  in  the  English  High  School,  with  or  without  man- 
ual training.  Is  it  an  eminently  practical  course  in  carpentry, 
wood-turning,  forging,  machine-shop  practice,  and  mechanical 
drawing,  with  sympathetic  academical  work,  that  is  sought,  — 
training  in  the  alphabet  and  primer  of  the  trades  that  aims  to 
fit  one  to  respond  to  the  changing  demands  of  industrial  life  ? 
There  is  the  Manual  Training  School,  furnishing  one  half  of 
such  a  course,  and  the  English  High  School  the  other.  Or  is 
it  an  all-round  and  broader  schooling  that  is  wanted,  with  less 
of  the  classics  and  more  of  the  sciences  and  English  than  in  the 
traditional  college  course,  —  something  that  leads  up  to  the  nor- 
mal school  or  to  the  college  that  admits  without  Greek,  or  to 
what  we  call  the  general-culture  purposes  of  life  ?  It  is  just 
this  schooling  that  the  English  High  School  aims  to  provide. 

Cambridge  has  nine  grammar  schools,  each  for  both  sexes, 
with  six  grades  of  pupils.  The  following  table  of  these  schools 
is  based  on  the  data  of  December,  1895  :  — 


204 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 


Schools. 

When 
founded. 

Teachers. 

Pupils. 

Principals. 

AUston     .... 

1848 

14 

571 

Benjamm  W.  Roberts. 

Harvard  . 

1841 

19 

742 

James  S.  Barrell. 

Morse  .     . 

1890 

11 

414 

Marv  A.  Townsend. 

Peabody  . 

1889 

7 

295 

Frederick  S.  Cutter. 

Putnam    . 

1845 

18 

688 

Thomas  W.  Davis. 

Shepard    . 

1852 

12 

449 

Edward  0.  Grover. 

Thorndike 

1861 

13 

488 

Ruel  H.  Fletcher. 

Washingtou 

1842 

14 

453 

John  W.  Freese. 

Webster  . 

1853 

17 

685 

John  D.  Billings. 

Wellington 

1884 

51 

435 

Herbert  H.  Bates. 

The  history  and  work  of  these  great  schools  merit  a  larger 
notice  than  is  here  possible.  It  may  be  said  in  passing  that 
Mr.  Roberts  has  been  principal  of  the  AUston  School  from  its 
beginning.  At  the  age  of  eighty,  he  shows  the  vigor  and  pro- 
gressive spirit  of  his  prime.  Many  of  these  schools  had  an 
existence  under  other  names  and  conditions  before  the  dates  of 
their  founding  as  given  above,  like  the  Shepard,  which  was 
known  as  the  Winthrop  before  1852,  and  earlier  still  as  the 
North  Grammar;  or  like  the  Webster,  known  from  1841  to 
1853  as  the  Mason ;  or  like  the  Thorndike,  which,  previous  to 
1861,  was  the  Otis,  —  the  school  which,  from  1843  to  1847,  was 
known  as  the  High  and  Grammar  School  of  East  Cambridge ; 
or  like  the  Washington,  whose  history,  as  we  have  seen,  makes 
it  difficult  to  assign  a  satisfactory  date  for  its  founding.  The 
Morse  and  Wellington  schools  have  primary  in  addition  to  the 
grammar  grades. 

In  addition  to  these  ten  grammar  schools  mentioned  there 
are  three  others  that  contain  grammar  pupils  to  the  number  of 
388  (December,  1895),  —  the  Corlett,  Agassiz,  and  Sleeper. 
These  schools  send  their  pupils  of  the  upper  grades  to  such  of 
the  other  grammar  schools  as  are  in  their  vicinity.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Corlett,  the  same  schools  have  primary  as  well 
as  grammar  grades. 

The  Wellington  School  is  a  training  school  for  teachers. 
There  had  previously  been  a  training  school  from  1870  to  1882. 
An  interval  of  two  years  without  such  a  school  brought  into 
bold  relief  its  value  to  the  city.  Consequently,  in  1884,  the 
present  school  was  organized.  It  has  a  small  regular  force  of 
1  Assisted  by  the  training  class. 


INGENIOUS  AND   UNIQUE  FEATURES.  205 

teachers,  selected  with  reference  to  their  ability,  not  only  to 
teach,  but  to  guide  novices  in  the  art.  In  addition  there  are 
from  twenty  to  thirty  pupil  teachers,  graduates  of  normal 
schools,  and  others  of  equivalent  previous  training,  who  are 
paid  humble  salaries,  and  who,  as  they  prove  their  ability  to  do 
creditable  work,  are  put  into  the  schools  of  the  city  as  substi- 
tutes or  regular  teachers. 

Mr.  Cogswell  has  arranged  an  ingenious  plan,  under  which 
capable  pupils  may  regularly,  and  in  classes,  complete  the  six 
years'  course  of  the  grammar  schools  in  five  years,  and  even  in 
four.  The  report  of  the  superintendent  for  1894  shows  that,  of 
563  graduates  of  the  grammar  schools,  ten  per  cent,  completed 
the  course  in  four  years,  thirty-two  per  cent,  in  five  years,  forty- 
two  per  cent,  in  six  years,  and  sixteen  per  cent,  in  seven  or 
more  years.  The  saving  in  time  and  money,  both  to  the  city 
and  to  the  pupil,  in  this  individual  shortening  of  the  course 
is  much  in  its  favor.  Moreover,  it  is  better  intellectually  and 
morally  that  one  should  work  somewhere  near  his  capacity  for 
four  years  than  dawdle  along  in  the  rear  of  that  capacity  for 
six. 

A  unique  feature  in  the  Cambridge  grammar  schools  is  the 
employment  of  special  teachers  to  help  forward  such  pupils  as 
seem  able  to  do  the  work  in  less  than  the  prescribed  time,  as 
well  as  such  pupils  as  threaten  to  take  more  than  the  prescribed 
time. 

Geometry  and  physics  have  recently  been  put  into  the  gram- 
mar schools,  —  the  course  in  geometry  having  been  outlined 
by  Professor  Paul  H.  Hanus  and  that  in  physics  by  Professor 
Edwin  H.  Hall,  both  of  Harvard  University.  The  instruction 
is  limited  to  such  simple  elementary  principles  as  may  be  read- 
ily apprehended  by  the  young,  and  the  methods  of  study  are 
largely  objective  and  experimental. 

In  the  primary  schools  there  are  5087  pupils  and  116  teach- 
ers. They  are  under  the  immediate  supervision  of  a  "  Special 
Teacher  of  Primary  Schools,"  whose  work  is  directed  by  the 
superintendent  of  schools.  Miss  Lelia  A.  Mirick,  now  Mrs. 
Frederick  S.  Cutter,  was  the  first  to  hold  this  position,  which 
was  created  in  1892.  She  was  succeeded  in  1895  by  Miss 
Mary  A.  Lewis.  The  course  of  study  is  for  three  years.  Of 
the  1159  pupils  graduated  in  June,  1894,  ten  per  cent,  com- 
pleted this  course  in  less  than  three  years,  fifty-eight  per  cent. 


206  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

in  three  years,  and  thirty-two  per  cent,  in  more  than  three  years. 
Regular  instruction  in  botany  has  recently  been  introduced ; 
also  the  Ling  system  of  Swedish  gymnastics. 

For  eleven  years  Mrs.  Quincy  A.  Shaw  of  Boston  maintained 
three  free  kindergartens  in  Cambridge.  A  fourth  was  sup- 
ported by  a  few  Cambridge  ladies.  In  1889  the  school  com- 
mittee assumed  them  as  a  part  of  the  public  school  system  and 
since  that  time  have  gradually  added  to  their  number  until  to- 
day there  are  eight  kindergartens  with  417  pupils  and  sixteen 
teachers. 

The  city  employs  several  special  teachers.  Mr.  Frederick  E. 
Chapman  is  director  of  music  and  Mr.  James  M.  Stone  director 
of  drawing.  There  are  also  teachers  of  botany,  gymnastics,  and 
sewing. 

The  city  maintains  one  evening  high  school,  four  evening  ele- 
mentary schools,  and  one  evening  drawing  school. 

It  is  sad  that  the  blessings  of  school  so  prized  by  the  vast 
majority  of  our  citizens  should  fg,il  to  impress  some  of  our 
number.  Absenteeism  in  a  bad  sense  has  been  heavily  reduced 
since  the  founding  of  the  city,  but  it  still  exists.  Whatever  its 
cause,  whether  the  ignorance,  indifference,  misfortune,  greed  of 
gain,  inability  to  control,  or  what  not  of  the  parent,  it  should  be 
kept  down  to  a  minimum  both  for  the  children's  sake  and  for 
that  of  their  families  and  the  community.  Hence  the  employ- 
ment by  the  city  of  four  truant  officers  who  are  in  constant 
touch  with  the  teachers  on  the  one  hand  and  the  irregulars  on 
the  other. 

A  comparison  of  Cambridge  statistics  for  1845,  the  last  year 
of  the  town,  with  those  for  1895,  the  fiftieth  of  the  city,  reveals 
surprising  changes. 

1845  1895 

Population 12,000  82,000 

Valuation S8,600,000  $82,000,000 

Cost  of  instruction       11,558  235,812 

Cost  per  pupil 3.95  20.50 

Percentage  of  valuation  spent  on  schools    .     .     .  .0013  mills.  .0034  mills. 

Ratio  of  school  tax  to  the  whole  tax       ....  33%  33% 

Number  of  pupils 2151  12,174 

Number  of  teachers 30  322 

Number  of  pupils  per  teacher 71  38 

Salary  of  high  school  principal $800  $3,000 

Salary  of  grammar  school  principal 700  2,000 

Salary  of  grammai'  school  teachers 250  620 


THE  MODERN  DRIFT.  207 

This  comparison  shows  that  our  population  during  the  past 
fifty  years  has  increased  sevenfold,  our  valuation  tenfold,  the 
cost  of  instruction  per  pupil  about  fivefold,  the  percentage  of 
valuation  expended  on  schools  nearly  threefold,  and  the  salaries 
of  teachers  about  threefold,  while  the  number  of  pupils  per 
teacher  has  been  reduced  nearly  one  half.  The  I'atio  of  the 
school  tax  to  the  entire  tax  has  remained^  however,  about  the 
same,  indicating  that  whatever  advance  there  may  have  been  in 
school  expenditures,  there  has  been  a  like  advance  in  all  other 
departments  of  the  government.  In  striking  contrast  with  this 
growth  of  expense  in  certain  things  is  the  decrease  in  expense 
of  many  other  things,  —  text-books,  pictures,  freight,  travel,  and 
the  like.  Such  changes  are  a  part  of  our  civilization.  Cam- 
bridge has  simply  borne  her  part  in  the  irresistible  modern 
drift.  The  days  of  content  with  wretched  buildings,  scant 
equipment,  worn  books  from  former  generations,  meagre  sala- 
ries, narrow  programmes,  and  the  entire  scale  of  humble  school 
expenditure  are  seemingly  gone  forever,  not  simply  in  Cam- 
bridge, but  in  all  Massachusetts  communities  of  consequence. 
Were  Cambridge  suddenly  and  alone  to  go  back  to  those 
Arcadian  times  when  it  cost  her  only  $3.95  per  pupil  for  in- 
struction, she  would  drop  from  the  thirty-sixth  place  which  she 
holds  to-day  in  the  list  of  three  hundred  and  fifty-three  Massa- 
chusetts towns  and  cities  to  the  three  hundred  and  fifty-second, 
with  the  Indian  town  of  Gay  Head  at  the  foot  to  keep  her  com- 
pany, while  the  expenditure  of  844.76  per  pupil  by  number  one 
in  the  list  would  seem  to  them  both  unpardonable  extravagance. 

The  educational  advantages  of  Cambridge  are  by  no  means 
exhausted  with  this  meagre  account  of  the  public  schools. 
There  are  private  schools  of  many  grades,  some  of  them  excel- 
lent. There  is  Radcliffe  College  for  young  women.  Above  all 
there  is  the  famous  university,  with  its  great  library,  its  wonder- 
ful museum,  its  botanical  garden,  many  of  its  lectures  and  much 
else  that  it  provides  for  its  students,  all  freely  open  or  open  with 
but  moderate  limitations  to  the  public.  For  fifty  years  with 
scarcely  a  break  Harvard  College  has  been  represented  on  the 
school  committee  of  the  city.  Of  late  years  it  has  given  free 
courses  in  certain  subjects  to  the  teachers  of  the  city.  In  the 
Prospect  Union,  it  is  repeating  its  instruction,  in  a  popular 
way,  for  workingmen  and  others,  thus  bringing  the  college  and 
those  that  choose  of  the  people  into  a  touch  helpful  and  inspiring 
to  both. 


208  PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

To  these  advantages  may  be  added  finally  that  indefinable 
atmosphere  which  comes  from  historic  and  literary  associations 
unmatched  elsewhere  in  the  western  world,  the  very  breath  of 
which  is  an  education  not  to  be  despised. 

The  Newtowne  of  1631 ;  the  Harvard  of  1636  ;  the  old  bury- 
ing ground  where  lie  the  early  presidents  of  the  college ;  the 
holiday  routes  of  the  British  to  Concord  and  Lexington ;  the 
bloody  routes  of  their  return ;  the  elm  where  Washington  took 
command  of  the  army,  the  mansion  where  he  lived  with  Lady 
Washington,  the  little  church  that  both  attended  ;  the  site  of 
the  ramparts  thrown  up  in  the  siege  of  Boston  ;  the  winding 
road  —  old  Tory  Row  —  by  which  the  army  of  Washington 
marched  out  of  Cambridge  for  New  York  and  by  which,  not 
long  after,  the  army  of  Burgoyne  from  New  York  marched  into 
Cambridge  ;  Hollis,  Stoughton,  Hoi  worthy,  and  the  rest,  —  the 
sometime  homes  of  scores  of  men  subsequently  distinguished  in 
their  respective  fields  of  service ;  the  site  of  the  gambrel-roofed 
house  where  Holmes  was  born  ;  the  stately  home  of  Lowell 
among  the  pines  and  near  the  willows  that  stirred  his  muse  ; 
and  doubly  dear,  with  its  memories  of  Washington  as  of  the 
poet,  that  of  Longfellow,  with  its  vista  of  the  sinuous  Charles 
and  the  marshes  beyond  ;  beautiful  Mount  Auburn,  —  the  West- 
minster Abbey  of  New  England,  where  at  every  turn  the  names 
of  the  illustrious  dead  quicken  one's  memory  of  the  history  they 
shared  in  making,  —  these  are  but  a  part  of  the  priceless  her- 
itage that  is  ours. 

Does  the  sense  of  their  value  ever  become  dull  ?  Let  the  pil- 
grims that  come  to  us  in  annually  increasing  numbers  sharpen 
that  sense,  and  nerve  us  to  keep  these  memorials,  so  far  as  their 
keeping  may  be  in  our  hands,  as  unique  and  sacred  supplements 
of  our  educational  facilities. 


PRIVATE   SCHOOLS   IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

The  high  character  of  the  public  schools  in  Cambridge  is  a 
reason  why  there  have  been  a  small  number  of  private  institu- 
tions, though,  of  course,  this  very  quality  in  the  public  schools 
has  made  it  necessary  that  those  private  institutions  that  have 
been  established  here  should  be  of  an  unusually  high  grade  of 
excellence.     The  movement  in  this  direction  has,  therefore,  not 


PROFESSOR  AGASSIZ'S  SCHOOL.  209 

been  so  strong  as  in  many  other  communities,  but  the  reasons 
for  it  are  the  same  everywhere.  "  The  multiplication  of  pri- 
vate schools  of  a  high  order  is  not  to  be  accounted  for,"  writes 
Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  "  by  an  undemocratic  reluctance 
to  submit  well-bred  children  to  the  associations  of  the  popu- 
lar schools.  What  is  wanted,"  he  continues,  "is  an  institution 
under  individual  management ;  not  for  mere  experiments,  but 
for  development  founded  upon  experience,  and  suited  to  the 
capacities  and  the  positions  of  the  great  variety  of  scholars."  It 
may  be  added  that  in  some  instances  it  is  a  wish  on  the  part  of 
the  parent  to  place  the  child  under  school  influences  that  are 
emphatically  religious  or  denominational.  In  whatever  direc- 
tion the  training  is  desired,  the  parent  wishes  that  it  may  dis- 
tinctly "  raise  the  ideal  of  life."  Many  a  one  seeks  a  school  of 
smaller  size  than  he  can  find  among  those  supported  by  the 
State,  in  which  the  course  of  study  can  be  adapted  more  partic- 
ularly to  the  need  of  each  individual  pupil. 

PROFESSOR   AGASSIZ'S   SCHOOL. 

The  mind  reverts  at  once,  when  the  subject  of  private  schools 
is  mentioned  in  Cambridge,  to  that  notable  one  connected  with 
the  name  of  the  great  Agassiz,  which  was  opened  in  his  resi- 
dence in  1855  and  closed  in  1863,  during  a  portion  of  those 
years  when  the  professor  was  stimulating  scientific  study  in 
a  way  that  no  other  single  master  has  ever  stimulated  it  in 
America.^  It  is  interesting  to  read  of  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  great  teacher  entered  upon  the  labor  of  this  school. 
It  was  in  the  winter  of  1855,  when  his  physical  energy  had 
been  exhausted  by  work,  in  order  to  add  to  the  scant  income 
of  his  college  professorship,  that  "  it  occurred  to  his  wife  and 
two  elder  children,  now  of  an  age  to  assist  her  in  such  a  scheme, 
that  a  school  for  young  ladies  might  be  established  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  new  and  larger  house "  which  Harvard  College 
had  just  built  for  him.  "  If  successful,  such  a  school  would 
perhaps  make  good  in  a  pecuniary  sense  the  lecturing  tours 
which  were  not  only  a  great  fatigue  to  Agassiz,  but  an  inter- 
ruption also  to  all  consecutive  scientific  work.  In  consulta- 
tion with  friends  these  plans  were  partly  matured  before  they 
were  confided  to  Agassiz  himself.  When  the  domestic  con- 
spirators revealed  their  plot,  his  surprise  and   pleasure  knew 

^  See  Scientific  Cambridge,  by  Professor  Trowbridge,  p.  74.  —  EnrrOB. 


210  PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

no  bounds.  The  first  idea  had  been  simply  to  establish  a  pri- 
vate school  on  the  usual  plan,  only  referring  to  his  greater 
experience  for  advice  and  direction  in  its  general  organization. 
But  he  claimed  at  once  an  active  share  in  the  work.  Under 
his  inspiring  influence  the  outline  enlarged,  and  when  the  cir- 
cular announcing  the  school  was  issued,  it  appeai-ed  under  his 
name,  and  contained  these  words  in  addition  to  the  programme 
of  studies :  '  I  shall  myself  superintend  the  methods  of  in- 
struction and  tuition,  and  while  maintaining  that  regularity  and 
precision  so  important  to  mental  training,  shall  endeavor  to 
prevent  the  necessary  discipline  from  falling  into  a  lifeless  rou- 
tine, alike  deadening  to  the  spirit  of  teacher  and  pupil.  It  is 
further  my  intention  to  take  the  immediate  charge  of  the  in- 
struction in  Physical  Geography,  Natural  History,  and  Botany, 
giving  a  lecture  daily,  Saturdays  excepted,  on  one  or  other 
of  these  subjects,  illustrated  by  specimens,  models,  maps,  and 
drawings.'  "  ^ 

Jules  Marcou,  in  his  life  of  Agassiz,  says  that  "  Mrs.  Agassiz 
had  the  whole  management  of  the  school ;  everything  was  re- 
ferred to  her  as  director.  She  took  the  directorship  of  Agassiz's 
school  in  a  masterly  way,  and  succeeded  admirably.  She  her- 
self did  not  teach,  but  everything  regarding  the  teaching  came 
under  her  supervision.  As  the  fees  were  high,  the  school  was  a 
very  select  one,  and  pupils  came  from  different  parts  of  the  United 
States,  even  from  as  far  west  as  St.  Louis.  It  was  considered 
a  great  privilege  to  be  taught  by  such  a  naturalist  as  Agassiz, 
and  all  the  girls  whose  parents  could  afford  it  were  anxious 
to  join  the  school.  Of  course,  the  great  attraction  was  Agassiz. 
.  .  .  The  girls'  parents  often  came  with  them,  and  sat  down  in 
the  schoolroom  to  listen  to  the  lectures,  which  were  so  clear  and 
so  entertaining  that  every  one  followed  with  the  greatest  atten- 
tion the  subjects  brought  up  by  their  great  teacher,  however 
difficult  they  might  be."  ^ 

Mrs.  Agassiz  says  that  Mr.  Agassiz  "  never  had  an  audience 
more  responsive  than  the  sixty  or  seventy  girls  who  gathered 
every  day  at  the  close  of  the  morning  to  hear  his  daily  lecture ; 
nor  did  he  ever  give  to  any  audience  lectures  more  carefully 

'  Louis  Agassiz,  His  Life  and  Correspondence.  Edited  by  Elizabeth  Gary 
Agassiz.     Boston  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1886,  pp.  525-529. 

2  Life,  Letters,  and  Works  of  Louis  Agassiz,  by  Jules  Marcou.  New 
York  and  London,  1896,  ii.  pp.  60,  61. 


flPI 

IC^^^  .- "^liSRV- .h|H]k                        ^S^^^^H 

r  1     f'  "                       -l^^l 

«• 

'■'^^^^^^m 

4 

v'^^^HH^vr                         '^^^^^1 

s. 

MR.  KENDALL'S  SCHOOL.  211 

prepared,  more  comprehensive  in  their  range  of  subjects,  more 
lofty  in  their  tone  of  thought.  ...  It  was  the  simplicity  and 
clearness  of  his  method  that  made  them  so  interesting  to  his 
young  listeners.  '  What  I  wish  for  you,'  he  would  say,  '  is 
culture  that  is  alive,  active,  susceptible  of  farther  development. 
Do  not  think  that  I  care  to  teach  you  this  or  the  other  spe- 
cial science.  My  instruction  is  only  intended  to  show  you  the 
thoughts  in  nature  which  science  reveals,  and  the  facts  1  give 
you  are  useful  only,  or  chiefly,  for  this  object.'  .  .  .  Agassiz  had 
the  cooperation  not  only  of  his  brother-in-law.  Professor  Felton, 
but  of  others  among  his  colleagues,  who  took  classes  in  special 
departments,  or  gave  lectures  in  history  or  literature."  Among 
these  additional  instructors  was  Luigi  Monti,  the  Young  Sici- 
lian of  Longfellow's  "  Wayside  Inn," 

"  In  sight  of  ^tna  born  and  bred," 
who  was  at  the  time  teaching  in  Harvard  College. 

MR.  Kendall's  school. 

Mr.  Joshua  Kendall's  Day  and  Family  School  to  fit  young 
men  for  Harvard  College  was  begun  in  the  fall  of  1865,  its 
nucleus  being  some  pupils  whom  Mr.  Kendall  had  taught  at  his 
own  home,  and  some  others  whom  he  had  had  with  Professor 
William  P.  Atkinson,  before  that  gentleman  accepted  the  pro- 
fessorship of  English  and  history  at  the  Institute  of  Technology. 

For  several  years,  Mr.  Kendall  was  assisted  in  his  work  by 
Mr.  John  H.  Arnold,  until  that  gentleman  left  to  be  librarian  of 
the  Dane  Law  School. 

Since  that  time,  the  school  has  been  carried  on  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Kendall,  assisted  from  time  to  time,  in  special  depart- 
ments, especially  in  laboratory  work  in  physics,  by  competent 
teachers,  easily  procured  in  the  vicinity. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  establish  a  large  school.  The 
aim  has  always  been  rather  to  lead  the  pupil  to  get  a  lasting 
interest  in  his  studies  by  doing  thorough  work  for  himself  in 
them,  than  a  superficial  interest  gained  by  talking  or  lecturing. 

As  the  number  of  pupils  is  small,  the  teaching  is  done  in 
part  only  by  classes,  in  large  part  by  oversight  of  each  one's 
work  or  perplexities  separately.  At  whatever  point  in  his  pre- 
paration a  new  pupil  is  found  to  be,  from  that  he  is  pushed  far- 
ther on. 


212  PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

Believing  that  boys  intended  for  a  liberal  course  of  study 
should  be  early  initiated  into  that  course,  whenever  he  can  the 
principal  is  glad  to  have  them  begin  with  the  elements  of 
Latin  or  French,  with  algebra  and  inventional  geometry  at  the 
age  of  nine  or  ten  years. 

This  school  has  had  its  measure  of  success  in  training  boys  in 
knowledge  and  righteousness  ;  good  results  have  been  reached ; 
patrons  have  generally,  after  trial,  approved  of  it.  Three  jaro- 
fessorships  in  as  many  of  the  leading  universities  in  the  country 
are  now  filled  by  its  graduates,  while  others  hold  high  positions 
of  different  kinds.  This  shows  that  some  of  them  get  a  right 
start  at  least  on  the  road  to  higher  learning  in  this  school. 

Mr.  Lyman  R.  Williston  opened  a  school  for  girls,  on  Irving 
Street  in  1862.  It  was  removed  the  following  year  to  its  present 
situation.  It  is  called  "  The  Berkeley  Street  School "  from  its 
location.  Mr.  Williston  conducted  the  school  with  success  until 
1870,  and  then  transferred  it  to  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Justin 
E.  Gale,  who,  in  turn,  passed  it  over  in  1881  to  Miss  Margaret 
K..  Ingols,  who  still  carries  it  on. 

THE  BROWNE  AND  NICHOLS   SCHOOL. 

In  the  fall  of  1883,  at  the  suggestion  of  Professor  Child, 
Professor  Norton,  and  others  interested  in  the  establishment  in 
Cambridge  of  a  school  for  boys  which  should  effectively  meet 
the  demands  of  the  new  education,  the  Browne  and  Nichols 
School  was  founded  at  No.  11  Appian  Way.  The  principals 
had  graduated  from  Harvard  only  five  years  before,  and  they 
therefore  brought  to  bear  upon  the  problem  fresh  experience, 
both  from  the  student's  and  the  teacher's  point  of  view.  A 
radical  change  in  the  traditional  course  of  study  was  immedi- 
ately adopted :  four  departments,  language,  mathematics,  sci- 
ence, and  history,  were  organized ;  and  while  a  high  standard 
was  maintained  in  the  classics  and  mathematics,  much  more 
time  than  usual  was  devoted  to  modern  languages,  science,  and 
history. 

By  keeping  the  classes  small,  and  thereby  adapting  the  work  to 
the  individual  needs  and  capacities  of  pupils,  the  teachers  were 
enabled  from  the  first  to  give  not  only  excellent  preparation 
for  the  university  and  the  scientific  school,  but  also  thorough 
training  in  branches  not  required  for  the  entrance  examinations. 


THE  BROWNE  AND  NICHOLS  SCHOOL.  213 

The  success  of  the  school  was  immediate,  and  its  growth 
rapid.  In  1885  more  commodious  quarters  were  found  at  No, 
8  Garden  Street.  In  1887  the  gymnasium  was  built.  In  1889, 
in  order  to  increase  the  economy  of  time  and  effort  that  their 
peculiar  organization  had  already  effected,  the  principals  added 
a  preparatory  department,  and  were  thereby  enabled  to  lay  out 
a  continuous  course  of  eight  years,  almost  exclusively  under  the 
same  instructor  in  each  subject,  for  pupils  beginning  at  the  age 
of  nine.  The  wisdom  of  these  principles  has  been  amply  justi- 
fied by  experience.  The  teachers  have  generally  been  Harvard 
men,  and  the  most  interested  patrons  have  been  Harvard  profes- 
sors. In  spite  of  the  distractions  of  university-town  life,  this 
community  of  interest  and  familiarity  on  the  part  of  the  teach- 
ers with  college  methods  and  aims  have  enabled  the  school  to 
give  its  graduates  a  preparation  for  college,  not  merely  for 
examinations,  —  a  preparation  characterized  not  so  much  by 
high  marks  on  the  entrance  examinations  as  by  excellent  con- 
tinuous work  during  the  college  course,  and  by  high  standing 
at  the  end  of  it,  —  as  is  shown  by  the  uniform  record  of  its 
graduates,  and  by  the  voluntary  testimony  of  college  patrons, 
who  are  best  qualified  to  judge.  A  school  that  f ulfiUs  this  func- 
tion is  obviously  capable  of  giving  an  excellent  education  to 
boys  who  do  not  go  to  college. 

The  present  school  building  was  built  in  the  summer  of  1894, 
under  the  supervision  of  the  owners  from  their  own  plans,  and 
is  therefore  specially  adapted  to  their  particular  needs.  The 
rooms  are  large  and  high,  finished  in  natural  ash  throughout, 
and  the  walls  are  tinted  a  soft  buff.  The  windows  were  con- 
structed on  the  principle  that  it  is  easier  to  keep  light  out  when 
it  is  excessive,  than  to  get  it  in  when  it  is  deficient.  The  heating 
and  ventilating  is  of  the  most  approved  kind,  —  a  gravity  sys- 
tem, with  indirect  radiation.  An  upward  current  is  established 
by  steam  coils  in  large  ventilating  ducts  leading  to  the  roof 
from  the  level  of  the  floor  of  each  room ;  and  fresh  air  from  out 
of  doors  is  drawn  over  single  or  double  steam  coils  in  the  base- 
ment up  through  iron  ducts  opening  into  each  room  through 
large  apertures  eight  feet  from  the  floor.  A  constant  supply 
of  over  fifty  cubic  feet  per  minute  of  warm  fresh  air  for  each 
pupil  is  thus  kept  in  gentle  circulation  without  draught.  The 
heating  of  the  ample  halls  and  the  conservatory  is  reinforced  by 
direct  radiation.     The  plumbing,  baths,  and  sanitaries,  which 


214  PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

are  ventilated  into  an  independent  system,  are  of  the  best  de- 
sign, and,  like  all  the  other  appointments,  have  most  success- 
fully stood  the  test  of  two  years'  experience. 

The  school  is  pleasantly  situated  opposite  the  Common,  near 
the  Washington  Elm,  next  to  Kadcliffe  College.  It  attracts 
not  only  pupils  from  the  neighboring  towns,  but  also  families 
from  distant  parts  of  the  country,  who  come  to  Cambridge  to 
live  during  the  education  of  their  children. 

THE   CAMBRIDGE   SCHOOL   FOR   GIRLS. 

The  Cambridge  School  for  Girls,  which  now  occupies  the 
building  numbered  79  on  Brattle  Street,  was  opened  in  Octo- 
ber, 1886,  in  the  house  numbered  20  on  Mason  Street,  formerly 
the  home  of  Professor  Peck  of  Harvard  College,  and  has  there- 
fore just  completed  its  tenth  year.  The  number  of  pupils  at 
present  is  about  one  hundred,  but  it  was  not  at  first  intended 
to  include  so  many.  Mrs.  Arthur  Oilman,  whose  interest  in 
the  higher  education  of  women  had  led  her  to  induce  her  hus- 
band to  make  the  plan  which  resulted  in  Radcliffe  College, 
wished  to  have  a  small  class  for  the  instruction  of  her  own  chil- 
dren, and  it  was  only  when  she  found  that  there  were  many 
other  mothers  who  wished  to  send  their  daughters  of  various 
ages  to  the  same  teachers,  that  she  relinquished  the  scheme, 
and  Mr.  Gilman  took  it  up. 

The  house  on  Mason  Street  was  bought  for  the  school,  and 
there  it  remained  until  three  years  ago,  when  the  present  edifice 
was  erected  and  ready  for  occupancy.  During  this  period,  the 
original  building  had  been  constantly  enlarged  as  the  numbers 
increased,  and  when  pupils  began  to  come  from  a  distance,  a 
residence  was  erected  at  No.  21  Chauncy  Street,  and  prepared 
for  them.  This  was  named  for  the  wife  of  the  first  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  Margaret  Winthrop  Hall.  When  this  became 
too  limited  in  accommodation  for  the  demand  upon  it,  the  resi- 
dence of  Mr.  William  D.  Howells  was  obtained,  and  opened 
for  the  same  purpose.  By  this  plan  the  school  remains  a  day 
school,  and  the  residences  are  real  homes. 

It  has  been  a  part  of  Mr.  Gilman's  plan  to  have  no  instructor 
living  in  the  residences,  so  that  the  pupils  and  teachers  are  sep- 
arate, and  come  fresh  together  at  the  beginning  of  the  school- 
day.  The  heads  of  the  residences  are  chosen  for  their  ability 
in  forming  a  home,  and  in  giving  to  young  women  that  cultiva- 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SCHOOL  FOR  GIRLS.  215 

tion  which  is  not  to  be  learned  from  books.  The  plan  is  an 
expensive  one  to  carry  out,  but  Mr.  Gilman's  faith  that  it  is 
the  best  for  the  young  woman  gave  him  great  confidence  in  it, 
and  experience  in  carrying  it  on  has  shown  its  advantages. 

A  visitor  from  New  York  writes  of  The  Cambridge  School  as 
follows :  — 

"  There  has  always  been  a  special  inspiration  in  the  air  of 
Cambridge,  and  in  the  impress  which  has  been  made  upon  the 
town  by  many  of  its  citizens.  In  the  living  present  there  is  no 
lack  of  the  same  spirit.  To  be  the  home  of  Harvard  University 
should  be  honor  enough,  but  more  falls  to  the  lot  of  Cambridge, 
and  in  no  small  measure  to  the  school  about  which  we  write. 
Nor  is  this  an  exaggerated  statement  when  we  consider  the 
importance  of  the  proper  education  of  our  girls,  and  the  unique 
characteristics  of  this  particiJar  school.  To  give  to  girls  and 
young  women  thorough  and  well-ordered  instruction  is  the  aim 
of  The  Cambridge  School.  Individual  need  is  the  gauge,  that 
each  pupil  may  receive  the  training  best  calculated  for  a  well 
rounded  development  of  talents  and  general  character.  .  .  . 

"  The  Cambridge  School  occupies  three  buildings  in  the  best 
part  of  Old  Cambridge.  Two  of  these  are  residences  for  young 
ladies  who  come  from  a  distance ;  the  third  is  the  school  build- 
ing proper.  Here  are  the  class-rooms,  study-rooms,  dressing- 
rooms,  book-room,  laboratories,  and  office.  All  these  are  ar- 
ranged in  the  best  possible  manner  to  serve  the  object  in  view, 
namely,  teaching.  The  residences  are  entirely  separate  from, 
although  near  to,  the  school  building  itself,  and  they  are  ar- 
ranged for  their  own  peculiar  use.  In  this  arrangement  lies 
the  special  and  distinctive  feature  which  Mr.  Arthur  Oilman, 
the  director  of  The  Cambridge  School,  emphasizes  most  partic- 
idarly.  The  teachers  are  supreme  in  their  own  departments 
under  the  director,  who  is  not  a  teacher  himself.  Out  of  the 
schoolroom  the  girls  are  under  the  charge  of  four  experienced 
ladies,  two  in  each  residence.  Their  duty  is  to '  make  a  home  ' 
for  the  pupils,  and  they  study  how  to  bring  this  about  with  as 
much  pains  as  do  the  teachers  their  own  part.  Thus  the  social 
and  home  life  of  the  students  as  well  as  their  actual  school  life 
is  developed  at  the  same  time  in  all  legitimate  ways.  Such  a 
plan  approaches  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  ideal.  Of  course, 
the  teachers  and  the  house-mothers,  as  we  may  not  inaptly  call 
the  ladies  in  charge  of  the  residences,  have  frequent  opportu- 


216  PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

nity  for  conference  and  consultation  regarding  the  interests  of 
the  pupils,  and  they  work  together  in  perfect  harmony  toward 
the  one  great  end.  .  .  . 

"  Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  put  upon  the  all-important 
feature  of  home  life.  Pupils  go  to  school  primarily,  of  course, 
to  study,  but  even  learning  may  be  bought  at  too  costly  a  price. 
The  curriculimi  at  The  Cambridge  School  embraces  all  that  is 
needed  either  to  fit  a  young  lady  to  enter  college,  if  she  is  des- 
tined so  to  do,  or  to  send  her  home  the  possessor  of  a  finished 
education.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  The  Cambridge 
School  is  not  simply  a  preparatory  school,  but  one  where 
scholars  of  any  age  can  find  all  they  need  without  looking  for- 
ward to  a  future  educational  course.  The  home  and  social 
training  go  on  hand  in  hand  with  the  school  life.  The  ladies 
in  charge  of  the  residences  do  not  teach.  They  do  watch  over 
the  girls  in  their  care.  Being  ladies  of  high  social  position, 
the  pupils  have  all  the  advantages  afforded  by  Cambridge  and 
Boston.  These  ladies  are  responsible  for  the  out-of-school  con- 
duct of  the  girls,  but  they  do  not  bind  them  by  irksome  rules. 
They  care  for  each  resident  pupil  as  an  individual.  The  char- 
acter of  each  is  made  a  special  study,  and  suggestion  and  help 
are  always  forthcoming.  High  ideas  of  womanliness  are  con- 
stantly held  before  the  pupil,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  social 
graces  and  courtesies  of  family  life  is  ever  insisted  upon.  With 
all  this,  however,  the  greatest  possible  liberty  consistent  with 
strict  propriety  is  allowed. 

"The  course  of  study  is  thorough  and  comprehensive.  In 
addition  to  this  the  advantages  of  situation  are  as  rare  as  they 
are  notable.  The  neighborhood  of  Harvard  with  its  atmos- 
phere of  learning  and  its  literary  influence  must  act  as  a  stim- 
ulus to  any  student.  Longfellow,  whose  house  at  Cambridge 
stands  near  the  school,  most  truly  said  :  — 

"  '  Lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 

We  may  make  our  lives  sublime.'  " 

"  Cambridge  has  been  the  home  of  many  great  men  in  the 
realms  of  literature  and  art.  Here  during  the  college  terms, 
and  indeed  throughout  the  year,  are  gathered  men  who  are 
facile  princeps  in  their  own  peculiar  fields  of  work.  The  patri- 
otic spirit  is  stirred  by  the  daily  sight  of  the  Washington  Elm, 
under  which  Washington  is  said  to  have  drawn  his  sword  when 
he  took  command  of  the  American  army.     Upon  this  favored 


MISS  SMITH'S  SCHOOL.  217 

town  have  descended  in  especial  force  inspiring  influences  from 
the  patriot  Washington,  the  gentle  and  sweet-spirited  Long- 
fellow, the  genial  Hohnes,  and  the  broad-minded  Lowell.  Thus 
an  atmosphere  is  created  which  is  calculated  to  sustain  the  stu- 
dious spirit." 

FITTING   SCHOOL   FOR  BOYS   AND   GIRLS. 

In  1879,  Miss  K.  V.  Smith  was  encouraged  by  Ezra  Abbot, 
John  Fiske,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  Francis  J.  Child  to  open 
a  private  school  for  boys  and  girls  at  16  Ash  Street.  It  was 
removed  the  next  year  to  5  Phillips  Place,  and  again  changed 
to  54  Garden  Street,  and  in  1887  to  its  present  high  and  sunny 
locality  at  13  Buckingham  Street. 

The  school  auned  to  give  an  education  broader  than  usual, 
by  methods  tending  toward  intellectual  independence,  anticipa- 
ting thereby  a  large  number  of  the  suggestions  of  the  recent 
educational  committees  and  conferences. 

The  daily  session  is  short,  and  only  for  recitations,  responsi- 
bility for  study  hours  at  home  being  a  part  of  the  disciplinary 
value  of  the  school.  In  place  of  any  systematic  marking  in 
lessons  or  in  conduct,  the  school  has  been  controlled  by  a  spirit 
of  honor  and  an  enthusiastic  interest  in  work,  —  the  legacy  of 
the  first  class.  The  class-rooms  have  been  opened  freely  to  the 
parents  and  to  friends  of  education.  These  educational  de- 
partures won  from  the  first  the  support  and  sympathy  of  the 
best  patronage. 

This  school  was  the  first  private  co-educational  institution  for 
college  preparation  in  Cambridge. 

Besides  the  private  schools  mentioned,  there  are  several 
others.  Miss  Jeannette  Markham  has  one  for  girls  on  Buck- 
ingham Place,  and  Miss  Elizabeth  Man  son  established  a  kin- 
dergarten in  October,  1887,  which  at  present  occupies  the  house 
No.  46  Concord  Avenue,  near  the  Harvard  Observatory.  It 
will  be  apparent  that  Cambridge  is  well  furnished  both  with 
public  and  private  schools  of  a  high  character. 


CAMBRIDGE  JOURNALISM. 

By  F.  stanhope  HILL, 

EDITOB   OF    "  THE   CAMBRIDGE   TRIBUNE." 

So  far  as  this  writer  has  been  able  to  discover,  the  first  news- 
paper printed  in  Cambridge  was  the  "  New  England  Chronicle 
and  Essex  Gazette,"  published  by  Samuel  and  Ebenezer  Hall 
from  a  chamber  in  Stoughton  Hall,  assigned  to  them  by  the 
Provincial  Congress  in  May,  1775. 

"  From  this  press,"  says  a  contemporary,  "  issued  streams  of 
intelligence  and  those  patriotic  songs  and  tracts  which  so  pre- 
eminently animated  the  defenders  of  American  liberty."  But 
when  the  American  army  removed  from  Cambridge  a  year  later 
the  "  Chronicle  and  Gazette  "  seems  to  have  suspended  publi- 
cation. It  is  very  evident  there  was  no  newspaper  in  this  town 
in  July,  1786,  for  when  a  letter  to  the  selectmen  of  Cambridge 
requesting  their  concurrence  in  a  county  convention,  to  be  held 
in  Concord  on  August  23,  in  order  to  consult  "  upon  matters 
of  public  grievances  and  find  out  means  of  redress,"  with 
its  answer,  was  ordered  to  be  printed  by  our  selectmen,  it  ap- 
peared, July  27,  1786,  in  the  "  Boston  Independent  Chronicle." 
There  is  a  bare  possibility,  however,  from  the  similarity  of 
name,  that  our  Cambridge  "  Chronicle  and  Gazette  "  had  been 
moved  into  Boston  as  a  broader  field  for  journalistic  enterprise. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  a  somewhat  singular  fact  that  Cam- 
bridge, where  the  first  printing-press  erected  in  New  England 
was  set  up  by  Stephen  Daye  in  1639,  should  have  arrived  at 
the  mature  age  of  two  hundred  and  sixteen  years  before  she 
awoke  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  local  newspaper. 

To  the  modern  journalist  who  is  familiar  with  the  number- 
less interesting  and  dramatic  episodes  that  are  associated  with 
the  early  history  of  Cambridge,  the  fact  that  we  should  have 
had  no  local  newspaper  to  record  these  events  properly  seems 
an  appalling  waste  of  opportunity. 


JOSEPH  T.  BUCKINGHAM.  219 

Why,  for  instance,  should  it  have  been  left  to  the  "  Boston 
News  Letter  "  of  September  19,  1754,  to  describe  the  excit- 
ing "  chase  of  a  Bear  "  from  Lieutenant-Governor  Phips'  farm 
in  Cambridge  down  to  the  Charles  River,  and  his  subsequent 
capture ;  or  that  far  more  exciting  scene  in  September,  1774, 
when  the  British  troops  from  Boston  carried  off  the  powder 
from  the  Somerville  powder-house.  And  fancy  the  wealth  of 
display  headlines  which  a  Cambridge  newspaper  would  have 
deemed  necessary  to  set  forth  properly  the  story  of  that  event- 
ful visit  of  "  about  four  thousand  people  "  to  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Thomas  Oliver's  mansion  on  Tory  Row,  which  resulted 
in  his  resignation  and  subsequent  flight  into  Boston. 

Quiet  country  towns  like  Greenfield,  Worcester,  Salem, 
Newburyport,  and  Portsmouth,  where  life  moved  on  in  an  end- 
less monotony  of  pastoral  simplicity,  all  had  excellent  weekly 
newspapers,  founded  a  century  or  more  ago.  Yet  Cambridge, 
a  university  town  of  vastly  more  importance  and  with  far 
greater  facilities  for  producing  a  newspaper  than  any  of  these 
places,  had  no  home  paper  until  1846. 

This  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  for  years  she  had  counted 
among  her  highly  respected  citizens  a  number  of  well-known 
journalists  who  rode  into  Boston  each  morning  in  the  hourlies 
to  aid  in  making  the  daily  papers  of  our  neighboring  city,  and 
rode  out  again  in  the  evening  to  take  their  well-earned  repose 
at  their  homes  hard  by  the  banks  of  the  placid  Charles. 

Among  these  were  Joseph  Tinker  Buckingham  (ne  Tinker),^ 
who  commenced  his  career  in  1795  at  the  age  of  sixteen  as  a 
printer  in  the  office  of  the  "  Greenfield  Gazette."  In  1800  he 
came  to  Boston,  and  after  some  journalistic  experience,  which 
was  not  successful,  in  that  city,  he  removed  to  Cambridge. 
Later  he  built. a  house  on  Quincy  Street  where  Mrs.  James 

1  The  father  of  Mr.  Buckingham  was  Nehemiah  Tinker,  but  the  son  took  his 
mother's  name  by  permission  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  in  1806.  He  has 
been  immortalized  by  Mr.  Lowell,  in  the  first  series  of  the  Biglow  Papers, 
which  was  published  in  the  Courier,  in  1846-1848,  when  Mr.  Buckingham  was 
its  editor.  ' '  his  Folks  gin  the  letter  to  me  and  i  shew  it  to  parson  Wilbur  and  he 
ses  it  oughter  Bee  printed,  send  it  to  mister  Buckinum,  ses  he,  i  don't  allers 
agree  with  him,  ses  he,  but  by  Time,  ses  he,  I  du  like  a  feller  that  ain't  a 
Feared." 

It  was  in  the  New  England  Magazine,  then  under  the  editorial  care  of  Mr. 
Buckingham,  that  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  published  his  first  "  Autocrat  of 
the  Breakfast-Table  "  paper,  mentioned  many  years  afterwards  in  the  first  num- 
ber of  The  Atlantic  Monthly.  —  Editor. 


220  CAMBRIDGE  JOURNALISM. 

Fiske's  house  now  stands  and  lived  there  many  years,  but  after- 
ward moved  to  what  is  now  called  Buckingham  Street,  where 
he  died. 

Another  famous  Cambridge  editor  was  Theophilus  Parsons, 
Dane  Professor  of  Law  at  Harvard,  but  also  founder  and  editor 
of  the  "  United  States  Free  Press,"  and  for  several  years  en- 
gaged in  literary  pursuits. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison,  of  "  The  Liberator,"  lived  in  Cam- 
bridge, on  the  northwest  corner  of  Broadway  and  Elm  Street, 
from  1839  to  1843,  and  did  some  right  good  editorial  work 
during  that  period.  John  Gorham  PaKrey  was  one  of  the  ed- 
itors of  the  "  Boston  Daily  Whig,"  the  precursor  of  the  Free 
Soil  press,  about  1846,  and  was  one  of  the  editors  of  "  The 
Commonwealth."  Robert  Carter,  who  was  also  one  of  the 
early  editors  of  "  The  Commonwealth,"  had  previously  aided 
James  Russell  Lowell  in  editing  "  The  Pioneer,"  a  short-lived 
magazine.  And  Lowell  himself  in  1848  was  "  corresponding 
editor  "  of  the  "  Anti-Slavery  Standard,"  editorial  correspond- 
ent of  the  "  London  Daily  News,"  and  later,  in  1863,  was 
joint  editor,  with  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  of  the 
"  North  American  Review." 

Another  of  the  "  Abolition  editors  "  was  Rev.  J.  S.  Lovejoy 
of  Cambridgeport,  of  "  The  Emancipator  ;  "  while  Rev.  Thomas 
Whittemore  of  this  town  was  editor  of  "  The  Universalist 
Magazine  "  and  of  "  The  Trumpet."  But  the  list  of  Cam- 
bridge men  who  have  been  prominently  known  as  journalists 
and  editors  and  writers  for  magazines  strings  out  to  a  porten- 
tous length.  Among  many  others  there  are  Francis  Elling- 
wood  Abbott,  Rev.  Edward  Abbott,  Professor  Charles  F.  Dun- 
bar, Mr.  Joseph  Henry  Allen,  Francis  Foxcroft,  Professors 
Francis  Bowen,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  Andrews  Norton, 
Rev.  William  Ware,  William  Brewster,  William  D.  Howells, 
Samuel  H.  Scudder,  Horace  E,  Scudder,  and  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson,  who  so  gracefully  links  the  younger  and  older 
generation  of  Cambridge  writers. 

Yet  with  all  this  roll  of  Cambridge  men  famous  in  this  sphere 
of  work  it  remained  for  an  obscure  stranger  to  make  the  first 
venture  in  local  journalism  in  our  city.  From  1842  until  1845 
the  residents  of  Old  Cambridge  were  earnestly  striving,  both 
in  town  meeting  and  in  the  legislature,  to  be  set  off  from  the 
Port  and  East  Cambridge  as  a  separate  town  under  the  name 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  CHRONICLE.  221 

of  Cambridge.  But  these  local  dissensions  were  temporarily 
healed  by  the  "  Act  to  establish  the  City  of  Cambridge,"  ap- 
proved March  17,  1846.  While  the  excitement  attendant  upon 
the  adoption  of  this  measure  was  rife,  Mr.  Andrew  Reid,  a 
Scotchman,  who  had  served  an  apprenticeship  as  a  printer  in 
his  native  country  and  had  come  to  Boston  from  Halifax  and 
engaged  in  the  printing  business,  decided  to  venture  the  publi- 
cation of  a  weekly  newspaper  in  Cambridge. 

The  first  number  of  this  sheet,  which  he  called  "  The  Cam- 
bridge Chronicle,"  appeared  on  Thursday,  May  17, 1846,  issued 
from  an  office  over  the  grocery  store  of  the  late  Joseph  A. 
Holmes  on  the  corner  of  Main  and  Magazine  streets.  The 
initial  number  contained  a  full  account  of  the  inauguration 
of  the  new  city  government  on  the  previous  Monday,  May  7, 
with  Mayor  Green's  speech  in  full  occupying  four  and  a  haK 
colmnns.  The  paper  was  successful,  in  a  moderate  degree, 
from  the  first,  but  Mr.  Reid  was  in  poor  health  and  died  Jan- 
uary 4,  1847,  and  the  "  Chronicle  "  passed  into  the  possession 
of  Mr.  John  Ford,  in  February  of  that  year.  In  January,  1855, 
the  office  was  removed  to  the  corner  of  Main  and  Temple 
streets,  and  in  1858  Mr.  George  Fisher  purchased  the  "  Chron- 
icle "  and  conducted  it  until  1873,  when  he  sold  the  property 
to  Mr.  Linn  Boyd  Porter,  under  whose  charge  it  remained 
until  1886,  when  it  was  purchased  by  Mr.  F.  Stanhope  Hill. 
Four  years  later,  in  1890,  Mr.  Hill  bought  the  "Tribune" 
and  sold  the  "  Chronicle  "  to  Mr,  F.  H.  Buffum,  but  the  prop- 
erty returned  to  Mr.  Hill  in  1891,  and  he  then  sold  it  to  the 
present  proprietors,  J.  W.  Bean  and  C.  B.  Seagrave,  who  have 
since  added  a  job  printing  establishment  to  the  plant  and  made 
it  a  prosperous  business  enterprise  at  753  Main  Street. 

In  April,  1866,  Mr.  James  Cox,  a  practical  printer  in  Boston, 
established  the  "  Cambridge  Press,"  at  first  as  an  independent 
paper,  although  the  publisher  was  then  identified  with  the  Dem- 
ocratic party.  But  in  1872,  when  General  Grant  was  nom- 
inated for  a  second  term,  the  "  Press  "  fell  into  the  Republican 
ranks,  where  it  has  since  remained  and  seems  likely  to  stay 
while  the  present  editor  is  in  control  of  its  affairs. 

The  "  Press  "  has  always  given  close  attention  to  municipal 
affairs,  and  was  the  first  Cambridge  paper  to  advocate  the  no- 
license  policy.  Mr.  Cox,  who  established  the  paper  just  thirty 
years  ago,  is  stiU  in  possession,  although  he  has  passed  full 


222  CAMBRIDGE  JOURNALISM. 

threescore  and  ten  years  of  an  honorable  and  respected  life,  and 
is  the  Nestor  of  Cambridge  journalism. 

"  The  Cambridge  Tribune  "  was  founded  in  1878  by  Mr.  D. 
Gilbert  Dexter,  the  first  issue  appearing  on  March  7  of  that 
year.  Our  local  papers,  the  "  Chronicle  "  and  "  Press,"  were 
both  published  at  Cambridgeport.  The  "  Tribune  "  was  the  first 
newspaper  especially  identified  with  Old  Cambridge,  and  it  has 
continued  to  occupy  its  chosen  field  without  competition,  prov- 
ing both  the  wise  judgment  displayed  in  selecting  its  home,  and 
also  that  it  has  satisfactorily  filled  the  field. 

At  first,  the  "  Tribune  "  was  printed  at  the  University  Press, 
although  its  type  was  set  at  its  office,  19  Brattle  Square ;  but 
later  it  was  removed  to  No.  3  Linden  Street,  opposite  the  col- 
lege library,  where  it  is  still  published.  In  1885,  Mr.  Dexter's 
health  failing,  he  sold  the  "  Tribune  "  to  Mr.  William  B.  How- 
land,  who,  after  conducting  it  with  very  great  success  for  five 
years,  was  induced  to  go  to  New  York  as  business  manager 
of  the  "  Christian  Union  "  (now  "  The  Outlook  "),  and  he  sold 
the  property  to  Mr.  F.  Stanhope  Hill,  who  has  since  carried 
the  "  Tribune "  on  upon  the  same  general  lines  that  have 
marked  its  course  from  the  first  number,  giving  it  a  literary 
tone,  and  avoiding  sensationalism. 

Among  the  contributors  to  the  "  Tribune  "  during  the  past 
eighteen  years  are  numbered  the  poets  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and 
Holmes,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  William  Winter,  Rev. 
Drs.  A.  P.  Peabody,  Alexander  McKenzie,  and  Edward  Ab- 
bott, Rt.  Rev.  William  Lawrence,  D.  D.,  Andrew  MacFarland 
Davis,  Professors  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  William  James,  and 
Albert  B.  Hart,  Arthur  Gilman,  Caroline  F.  Orne,  Charlotte 
Fiske  Bates,  and  scores  of  others  almost  as  well  known. 

"  The  Cambridge  News  "  was  established  by  Mr.  Daniel  A. 
Buckley  in  the  year  1880.  This  gentleman  has  a  peculiar  indi- 
viduality and  strong  convictions,  and  his  paper  is  mainly  the 
exponent  of  his  personal  opinions  of  public  men  and  their  con- 
duct of  municipal  affairs,  which  he  does  not  hesitate  to  advance 
and  maintain  in  forcible  language.  By  that  chance  which  is 
often  the  fate  of  would-be  reformers,  the  editor  of  the  "  News  " 
is  not  infrequently  in  a  popular  minority,  but  the  honesty  of  his 
convictions  has  never  been  impugned,  and  those  who  differ  from 
his  views  the  most  radically  listen  to  his  remarks  on  public  oc- 
casions with  interest,  and  not  seldom  with  amusement. 


COLLEGE  JOURNALISM.  223 

The  college  publications  include  the  "•  Crimson,"  a  bright 
and  very  prosperous  little  daily,  eagerly  sought  for  by  the  students 
each  morning,  and  an  acknowledged  authority  on  all  undergrad- 
uate matters;  the  "Lampoon,"  the " Advocate,"  and  "The  Har- 
vard Graduates'  Magazine." 

"The  Sacred  Heart  Review"  is  a  Roman  Catholic  religious 
weekly  published  by  the  Rev.  John  O'Brien,  which  has  a  very 
large  circulation  throughout  the  State. 

The  Cambridge  newspapers  have  used  their  columns  mainly 
for  the  discussion  of  domestic  matters.  The  churches,  the  uni- 
versity, the  schools,  the  proceedings  of  the  City  Council,  and 
the  development  of  local  industries,  have  engaged  their  atten- 
tion rather  than  the  consideration  of  lai'ger  national  affairs. 
Three  of  the  four  are  classed  as  independent  in  national  politics, 
but  the  "  Press "  is,  as  has  been  said,  Republican.  On  the 
questions  of  no-license  and  non-partisan  municipal  government, 
the  four  papers  are  as  a  unit  in  their  hearty  support  of  both 
policies.  That  they  have  been  right  in  their  general  course, 
and  that  they  fill  with  a  reasonable  measure  of  success  a  want 
in  the  community,  is  shown  by  the  generous  support  they  have 
received  from  our  citizens. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  MANUAL  TRAINING 
SCHOOL  FOR  BOYS. 

By  CHARLES  H.  MORSE, 

THE    SUPERINTENDENT. 

On  November  12,  1887,  at  a  special  meeting  of  the  City 
Council,  Mayor  Russell  read  a  communication  from  Mr.  Fred- 
erick H.  Rindge,  a  former  resident  of  Cambridge,  part  of  which 
was  as  follows :  — 

Hon.  William  E.  Russell  :  — 

Dear  Sir,  —  It  would  make  me  happy  to  give  the  City  of  Cam- 
bridge, provided  no  considerable  misfortune  happens  to  my  prop- 
erty within  two  years  from  date,  three  gifts,  which  are  described 
herein. 

Third,  an  Industrial  School  Building,  ready  for  use,  together  with 
a  site  for  the  same  in  tbe  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Public 
Library  Common,  provided  the  following  inscription,  in  metal  or  stone 
letters,  be  placed  on  the  outside  of  said  building  and  over  its  main 
entrance  door :  "  Work  is  one  of  our  greatest  blessings  ;  every  one 
should  have  an  honest  occupation."  I  wish  the  plain  arts  of  industry 
to  be  taught  in  this  school.  I  wish  the  school  to  be  especially  for  boys 
of  average  talents,  who  may  in  it  learn  how  their  hands  and  arms  can 
earn  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  for  themselves ;  how,  after  a  while, 
they  can  support  a  family  and  a  home ;  and  how  the  price  of  these 
blessings  Is  faithful  Industry,  no  bad  habits,  and  wise  economy,  — 
which  price,  by  the  way,  is  not  dear.  I  wish  also  that  in  it  they  may 
become  accustomed  to  being  under  authority,  and  be  now  and  then 
instructed  in  the  laws  that  govern  health  and  nobility  of  character.  I 
urge  that  admittance  to  said  school  be  given  only  to  strong  boys,  who 
will  grow  up  to  be  able  working  men.  Strict  obedience  to  such  a  rule 
would  make  parents  careful  in  the  training  of  their  young,  as  they 
know  that  their  boys  would  be  deprived  of  the  benefits  of  said  school 
unless  they  were  able-bodied.  I  think  the  Industrial  School  would 
thus  graduate  many  young  men  who  would  prove  theinselves  useful 
citizens. 


Manual  Training  School,  Interiors. 


REPUTATION  OF  THE  SCHOOL.  225 

I  ask  you  to  present  this  communication  to  the  City  Government  of 
Cambridge  and  notify  me  of  its  action  in  relation  to  it.  Should  the 
gifts,  with  their  conditions,  be  accepted,  I  hope  to  proceed  at  once 
with  the  work. 

Respectfully  yours, 

Frederick  H.  Rindge. 

The  City  Council  accepted  this  offer,  and  Mr.  Rindge  com- 
menced at  once  the  construction  of  a  suitable  building,  upon 
the  completion  of  which  the  school  was  opened,  in  September, 
1888. 

From  its  inception  it  has  been  under  the  watchful  eyes  of  its 
founder  and  supporter,  who  has  written  scores  of  letters  to  its 
superintendents,  giving  them  valuable  suggestions  and  words  of 
encouragement.  The  conservative  management  of  its  super- 
vising committee  has  also  in  no  small  degree  been  an  incentive 
to  the  superintendent  and  the  corps  of  able  instructors.  Its 
growth  has  been  rapid,  strong,  and  healthy,  and  with  such  man- 
agement the  successful  maintenance  of  the  school  is  assured. 
The  present  members  of  this  committee  are  Hon.  William  E. 
Russell,  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Hon.  Samuel  L.  Montague, 
Mr.  Andrew  McF.  Davis,  Mr.  E.  B.  Hale,  and  Mr.  Robert 
Co  wen. 

The  school  has  gained  an  almost  national  reputation  for  its 
eminently  practical,  progressive,  and  unique  features.  During 
the  eight  years  of  its  existence  it  has  grown  from  a  mere  educa- 
tional experiment  to  an  indispensable  factor  in  the  school  sys- 
tem, and  its  methods  have  been  copied  by  cities  throughout  the 
country,  wherever  an  effort  is  made  to  keep  abreast  with  mod- 
ern educational  principles. 

No  one  who  has  observed  the  trend  of  industrial  and  social 
progress  doubts  that  the  prevailing  forms  of  education  are  inad- 
equate to  the  needs  of  many  boys.  The  founder  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Manual  Training  School  has  provided  the  means  of  test- 
ing, under  most  favorable  circumstances,  the  educational  value 
of  training  based  upon  the  mechanic  arts.  Every  improvement 
in  equipment  and  in  methods  of  instruction  suggested  by  nearly 
eight  years'  experience  has  been  made,  and  the  school  is  now 
fully  prepared  to  do  the  work  for  which  it  was  established.  In 
order  to  provide  for  the  future  needs  of  the  youth  of  Caml)ridge, 
for  whose  benefit  the  school  was  primarily  established,  it  has 
been  equipped  on  a  scale  of  liberality  which  makes  it,  for  the 


226      THE   CAMBRIDGE  MANUAL   TRAINING  SCHOOL. 

present,  possible  to  accommodate  a  considerable  number  of  non- 
resident pupils.  The  loyalty  of  its  students,  and  the  favorable 
impression  already  made  by  its  graduates,  are  encouraging  evi- 
dences of  its  success. 

The  training  that  the  boys  receive  is  broad,  and,  above  all, 
practical,  —  a  training  calculated  to  make  good  workmen,  good 
citizens,  and  good  men.  Its  scope  covers  all  branches  of  the 
mechanic  arts,  including  carpentry  and  joinery,  blacksmithing, 
wood-turning,  and  pattern-making,  iron  -  fitting,  machine-shop 
practice,  and  mechanical  drawing. 

No  claim  is  made,  however,  that  the  school  teaches  a  trade. 
Did  it  do  so,  it  would  not  be  an  educational  institution  of  the 
high  order  which  it  is  in  the  minds  of  educators.  In  no  sense 
is  it  a  trade  school,  but  rather  a  school  in  which  the  whole  man 
is  educated,  the  hand  and  the  mind,  and  the  mind  more  broadly 
than  would  be  possible  without  the  education  of  the  hand.  The 
training  given  emphasizes  strongly  the  academic  side  of  the 
work,  and  strives  to  make  that  work  more  interesting  and  effect- 
ive by  bringing  it  into  intimate  relation  with  practical  appli- 
cations. The  school  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  boys 
who  have  little  aptitude  for  abstract  study,  but  who  wish  to  pre- 
pare themselves  for  employment  in  which  mechanical  skill  and 
an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  principles  which  underlie  the 
processes  employed  are  essentials  of  success. 

It  is  confidently  believed,  too,  that  the  school  offers  unsur- 
passed advantages  to  boys  who  desire  to  prepare  for  the  Law- 
rence Scientific  School,  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, or  any  similar  institution.  The  manual  dexterity  and 
the  thorough  knowledge  of  tools,  machinery,  and  mechanical 
processes  acquired  in  the  shops,  at  an  age  when  time  can  be 
most  easily  spared  for  such  training,  is  of  gi-eat  value  in  any 
scientific  pursuit. 

But  the  branches  of  manual  and  mental  science  taught  do 
not  compose  the  whole  of  a  boy's  education.  The  thoughtful 
man  questions  methods  used,  habits  inculcated,  and  standards 
adopted.  Here,  too,  we  have  only  to  look  to  the  boys  for  an 
answer.  Their  gentlemanly  manner,  self-control,  industry,  and 
personal  neatness,  all  testify  to  the  wholesome  and  stimulating 
influences  which  only  the  discipline  and  direction  of  courteous, 
methodical,  and  skillful  instructors  can  produce. 

Besides  the   reputation  which  its  educational   prestige   has 


FIRE  DRILL.  227 

given  it,  our  school  has  developed  features  which  are  calculated 
to  attract  popular  interest  and  support.  The  most  interesting 
of  these  is  the  unique  fire  drill,  an  application  of  the  methods 
of  extinguishing  and  preventing  fire,  ingeniously  fitted  to  the 
uses  of  a  school  drill.  The  boys,  during  drill  times,  hold  them- 
selves ready  for  an  alarm,  which  may  come  when  they  least  ex- 
pect it,  just  as  it  would  happen  in  ordinary  practice.  They  lay 
lines  of  hose,  raise  ladders,  and  use  life-saving  apparatus  with 
skill  and  speed.  Discipline  is  maintained  by  frequent  military 
drills,  which  also  afford  practice  in  the  management  and  hand- 
ling of  bodies  of  men.  In  connection  with  these  exercises  a  series 
of  lectures  is  given  by  an  experienced  physician  on  "  First  Aid 
to  the  Injured."  About  four  hours  per  week  are  devoted  to  the 
drill  during  the  first  year,  three  hours  during  the  second  year, 
and  two  hours  during  the  third  and  fourth  years.  A  part  of 
this  time  is  taken  from  that  assigned  to  shop  work,  but  some- 
what more  than  half  of  it  is  required  in  addition  to  the  regrdar 
school  hours.  Presence  of  mind  in  emergencies  is  a  marked 
result  of  fire  drill,  as  well  as  the  development  of  the  finer  quali- 
ties of  respect  to  superiors,  obedience,  courage,  and  tact  in  man- 
aging others. 

This  article  would  not  be  complete  without  a  word  about  the 
band,  which  has  been  so  many  times  introduced  to  Cambridge 
audiences,  and  has  given  pleasure  as  well  to  thousands  of  peo- 
ple in  other  cities,  always  contributing  its  share  towards  good 
government  and  no  license,  and  aiding  in  many  charitable  un- 
dertakings. 

The  Glee  Club,  composed  of  twenty -five  bright  boys,  has  been 
enthusiastically  received  by  many  audiences,  and  without  doubt 
will  become  as  popular  as  the  band  now  is. 

The  city  is  under  great  obligations  to  Mr.  Rindge  for  build- 
ing, equipping,  and  maintaining  this  school,  for  it  is  develop- 
ing in  our  community  the  material  for  skillful  artisans  and 
engineers,  who  are  destined  to  exert  great  influence  upon  the 
questions  constantly  arising  between  capital  and  labor,  and 
it  is  believed  that  the  influence  of  the  intelligent  graduates  of 
such  schools  will  do  much  to  solve  the  so-called  labor  problem. 
Cambridge  is  to  be  congratulated  upon  having  one  of  the  best- 
equipped  manual  training  schools  in  the  country. 


THE   PUBLIC   LIBRARY. 

By  WILLIAM  J.   ROLFE,  Litt.D. 

The  Public  Library  had  its  origin  in  the  Cambridge  Athe- 
naeum, which  was  incorporated  in  1849  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing "  a  lyceum,  library,  reading-room,"  etc.  The  beginning 
of  the  library  was  made  in  1855,  when  Mr.  James  Brown,  of 
Watertown,  bequeathed  one  thousand  dollars  to  the  institution, 
to  be  used  in  the  purchase  of  books ;  but  it  was  not  until  No- 
vember, 1857,  that  the  library  was  opened  to  the  public. 

The  next  year  (1858)  the  Athenaeimi  sold  its  building  (after- 
wards used  as  a  city  hall)  to  the  city,  which  obligated  itself  to 
contribute  at  least  three  hundred  dollars  a  year,  for  fifty  years, 
to  the  support  of  the  library,  and  to  maintain  it  forever  "  for 
the  benefit  of  the  inhabitants  of  Cambridge."  It  now  received 
the  name  of  the  Dana  Library,  in  honor  of  Mr.  Edmund  T. 
Dana,  who  had  given  the  land  for  the  site  of  the  Athenaeum 
building.  Later  Mr.  Dana,  by  a  codicil  to  his  will,  left  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  "for  the  increase  and  support  of  the  library;" 
but  the  city  lost  this  bequest  through  legal  objections  to  the 
form  in  which  it  was  expressed. 

In  1874  the  library,  for  the  use  of  which  a  fee  of  one  dollar 
a  year  had  been  charged,  was  made  free  to  the  public ;  and  in 
1879  the  name  was  changed  to  the  Cambridge  Public  Library. 

In  1875  the  library  contained  seven  thousand  volumes  ;  in 
1885  it  had  increased  to  eighteen  thousand ;  and  in  1895  to 
about  fifty  thousand. 

In  1887,  when  the  need  of  enlarged  accommodations  had  be- 
come urgent,  Mr.  Frederick  H.  Rindge  generously  offered  to 
give  the  city  a  large  tract  of  land  on  Broadway,  and  to  erect 
thereon  a  public  library  building.  The  offer  was  gratefully 
accepted,  and  the  building  was  completed  in  June,  1889.  It 
contained  a  book-room,  or  "  stack,"  capable  of  holding  eighty- 
five  thousand   volumes,   a  reading-room  measuring   sixty   by 


THE  CHILDREN'S  ROOM.  229 

twenty  feet,  a  delivery-room,  and  a  suite  of  rooms  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  works  of  Cambridge  authors  and  artists  and 
other  memorials  of  the  history  of  the  city.  In  1894  a  new  wing 
was  added,  which  provides  a  reading-room  for  children,  a  cata- 
logue-room and  librarian's  room,  and  on  the  second  floor  a  trus- 
tees' room  and  a  large  room  which  is  to  be  used  as  a  reference 
library  of  American  histoiy. 

In  the  general  reading-room  there  is  a  selection  of  about 
twenty-five  hundred  volumes  of  cyclopedias,  dictionaries,  and 
other  books  of  reference,  which  can  be  consulted  without  for- 
mality by  all  readers.  There  are  also  about  a  hundred  and 
thirty  periodicals,  including  the  leading  reviews  and  magazines, 
American  and  foreign,  with  a  select  list  of  newspapers. 

The  children's  room  is  liberally  furnished  with  juvenile  peri- 
odicals and  books.  Scrap-books  of  pictures  are  provided  for 
little  ones  who  are  not  yet  able  to  read.  This  room,  which 
accommodates  fifty  readers,  is  always  full  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  afternoon  and  all  day  on  Saturdays. 

For  the  convenience  of  readers  at  a  distance  from  the  library, 
seven  local  deliveries  have  been  established,  where  books  can 
be  received  and  returned  three  times  a  week.  At  the  Cam- 
bridgeport  station,  in  the  Prospect  Union  building,  a  small 
branch  library  has  been  formed.  At  present  about  twenty- 
five  thousand  volumes  are  annually  circulated  through  these 
stations. 

Another  feature  of  the  library  system  is  the  school  delivery. 
Teachers  in  the  high  and  grammar  schools  are  allowed  to  take 
ten  books  each  per  week,  to  be  used  at  their  discretion  among 
their  pupils.  The  books  are  carried  to  and  from  the  schools  in 
baskets.  In  1895  the  number  of  volumes  thus  circulated  was 
6572. 

This,  however,  does  not  represent  fully  the  use  made  of  the 
library  by  the  schools.  Many  of  the  teachers  use  their  personal 
cards  to  draw  books  helpful  in  their  work  ;  and  hundreds  of  the 
older  pupils  have  cards  of  their  own.  The  English  High  School 
is  too  near  the  library  to  need  the  delivery,  and  it  has  its  own 
library  of  several  thousand  volumes.  Several  of  the  other 
schools  have  small  libraries  that  partially  supply  their  wants. 
The  children's  reading-room  is  also  an  important  means  of  fur- 
nishing good  reading  for  the  younger  school-children. 

The  juvenile  appetite  for  this  intellectual  food  rapidly  grows 


230  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

with  what  it  feeds  upon.  The  demands  upon  the  school  delivery, 
according  to  the  latest  (1895)  report  of  the  librarian,  show  "  a 
large  increase."  At  present,  indeed,  they  exceed  the  available 
supply.  The  report  adds :  "  The  greatest  need  of  the  library, 
so  far  as  the  schools  are  concerned,  is  for  more  copies  of  certain 
books  very  generally  used.  From  similar  grades  throughout 
the  city,  requests  are  frequently  received  for  long  lists  of  books 
on  the  same  subject,  and  these  demands  cannot  always  be  satis- 
factorily met  at  one  time."  How  they  maybe  met  is  a  problem 
which  the  trustees  are  endeavoring  to  solve.  They  regard  the 
library  as  an  integral  part  of  our  educational  system,  and  will 
spare  no  efforts  to  bring  it  into  more  intimate  and  sympathetic 
relations  with  the  schools.  They  believe  that  it  will  tend  to  lead 
teacher  and  pupil  outside  the  narrow  range  of  mere  text-book 
instruction,  to  which  they  are  apt  to  confine  themselves,  and  thus 
to  broaden  their  field  of  view,  to  enlarge  their  ideas,  and  encour- 
age independent  thought  and  research,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
cultivate  a  taste  for  good  literature. 

The  total  yearly  circulation,  since  the  opening  of  the  new 
building  in  1889,  has  increased  from  about  eighty  thousand  to 
nearly  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  volumes.  This  does  not 
include  the  use  of  the  reference  library  in  the  reading-room,  of 
which  no  record  is  kept. 

Since  March,  1893,  the  library  has  been  open  for  readers  on 
Sunday  from  two  to  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  number 
of  visitors  during  the  first  seven  months  of  the  experiment  (the 
only  period  for  which  I  find  statistics)  was  1754,  of  whom  687 
were  under  fourteen  years  of  age. 

Since  January,  1896,  a  monthly  Bulletin  has  been  issued  for 
gratuitous  circulation,  in  which  classified  lists  of  additions  to  the 
library  are  given,  with  brief  descriptive  and  critical  notes  upon 
the  more  important  books.  Special  reading  -  lists  and  other 
matter  likely  to  be  useful  to  students  and  readers,  especially 
the  young,  will  be  added  from  time  to  time. 

The  "  Cambridge  Memorial  Room  "  is  already  a  considerable 
library  in  itself,  and  is  fast  growing  in  value  and  attractiveness. 
Three  years  ago,  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  native  or  resi- 
dent authors  were  represented  on  its  shelves.  The  complete 
works  of  many  of  these  are  in  the  collection,  including  not  a 
few  rare  first  editions.  Some  of  the  books  are  enriched  with 
autographs  or  manuscript  notes  by  author  or  editor. 


THE  MEMORIAL  ROOM.  231 

Of  seventy-nine  volumes  relating  to  Henry  W.  Longfellow, 
seventy  are  his  own  works,  three  are  selections  therefrom,  and 
six  are  biographical.  James  Russell  Lowell  is  represented  by 
thirty  volumes.  Among  these  is  an  interleaved  copy  of  Wor- 
cester's Dictionaiy,  with  his  name  and  the  date,  November  24, 
1847,  and  many  manuscript  notes  from  his  pen.  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes  has  eighteen  volumes,  including  his  first  collection 
of  poems  published  anonymously. 

Among  the  manuscript  rareties  are  two  portfolios  of  Margaret 
Fuller's  letters  and  writings,  deposited  by  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson ; 
the  "  Letters  given  by  the  English  Longfellow  Memorial  to  the 
Longfellow  Memorial  Association  of  Cambridge,"  with  the  auto- 
graphs of  eminent  Englishmen  interested  in  obtaining  the  bust 
of  the  poet  for  Westminster  Abbey  ;  and  the  "  Cambridge  Light 
Infantry  Orderly  Book  "  of  1815,  contributed  by  Mr.  Lucius 
R.  Paige.  There  are  also  important  manuscripts  by  Edward 
Everett,  James  Russell  Lowell,  and  other  authors. 

This  room  is  also  coming  to  be  a  museum  of  souvenirs  and 
relics  connected  with  local  history,  some  of  which  are  of  much 
antiquarian  or  artistic  interest.  A  large  glass  case  has  recently 
been  added  for  the  old  regimental  flag  presented  to  the  library 
by  the  38th  regiment  of  the  Massachusetts  Volunteer  Militia, 
to  whom  it  was  given  by  Cambridge  women  in  January,  1864. 

Aside  from  the  contributions  to  the  Memorial  Room,  the 
library  has  had  many  valuable  gifts  in  money  and  books  from 
Cambridge  people.  In  1873  it  received  a  thousand  dollars  by 
the  will  of  Mr.  Isaac  Fay,  and  in  1889  two  thousand  dollars  by 
that  of  Mr.  Daniel  P.  Cummings.  In  1889  also  a  fund  of  about 
nine  thousand  dollars  for  its  increase  was  raised  by  a  citizens' 
subscription.  Among  the  more  important  gifts  of  books  may 
be  mentioned  about  five  hundred  volumes,  chiefly  historical, 
from  Mr.  Denman  W.  Ross ;  more  than  two  thousand  volumes 
(with  a  collection  of  paintings,  engravings,  photographs,  medals, 
coins,  etc.)  from  the  estate  of  Mrs.  Anna  L.  Moering ;  the  rare 
and  valuable  medical  library  of  Dr.  Morrill  Wyman,  comprising 
more  than  four  thousand  volumes  ;  about  five  hundred  volumes 
from  the  estate  of  Prof.  E.  W.  Gurney  ;  and  one  hundred  and 
seventy-seven  volumes  from  the  medical  library  of  Dr.  C.  E. 
Vaughan.  Lists  of  these  and  other  donations  are  given  in  the 
annual  reports  of  the  trustees. 

This  imperfect  sketch  of  the  history  and  work  of  the  library 


232  '   THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

must  not  close  without  a  brief  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Miss 
Almira  L.  Hayward,  who  was  its  librarian  for  twenty  years 
(from  1874  to  1894)  ;  and  for  this  I  cannot  do  better  than  to 
quote  a  few  sentences  from  the  minute  entered  by  the  trustees 
on  their  records,  to  express  their  grateful  appreciation  of  her  ser- 
vices :  "  She  was  in  many  respects  a  remarkable  woman.  Her 
conscientious  self-devotion  was  without  limit,  and  long  expe- 
rience had  developed  in  her  the  very  highest  qualities  of  a 
librarian :  knowledge  of  books,  organizing  power,  and  a  ready 
sympathy  with  students.  More  remarkable  than  these  traits, 
perhaps,  was  the  promptness  with  which  she  adapted  herself  to 
the  great  enlargement  of  the  library  and  that  transformation  of 
its  methods  which  accompanied  its  removal  to  a  new  building. 
.  .  .  The  plan  of  an  addition  to  the  building,  with  special  ref- 
erence to  the  needs  of  the  children,  was  largely  hers ;  she  was 
spared  to  see  its  completion,  and  met  her  death  while  placing 
the  new  rooms  in  order.  She  died  literally  in  harness,  as  she 
always  wished  to  die ;  and  her  name  will  be  forever  associated 
with  the  most  important  formative  period  of  her  beloved  in- 
stitution." 

After  Miss  Hayward's  death  the  care  of  the  library  devolved 
for  several  months  upon  the  first  assistant.  Miss  Etta  L.  Rus- 
sell, who  proved  herself  altogether  competent  for  it,  but  declined 
to  be  a  candidate  for  the  librarianship.  Mr.  W.  R.  L.  Gifford, 
of  the  New  Bedford  Public  Library,  was  elected  to  the  vacancy, 
and  entered  upon  his  duties  in  March,  1895.  The  results  of 
his  first  year's  service  indicate  that  this  was  a  happy  choice. 

The  past  history  of  the  library  is  a  chapter  in  her  annals  of 
which  Cambridge  may  honestly  be  proud,  and  the  future  is 
full  of  promise. 


THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  rev.  ALEXANDER  McKENZIE,  D.  D. 

Whoever  writes  the  early  history  of  Cambridge  must  write 
of  the  first  churches  which  were  here,  and  the  continuance 
of  the  history  must  include  the  churches,  which  have  had  a 
goodly  part  in  making  the  town  and  the  city.  The  founders  of 
the  town  were  men  of  the  church.  The  first  settlers  in  these 
parts  had  come  from  a  land  where  the  church  and  the  state  were 
closely  united,  and  they  intended  to  keep  their  places  in  both 
while  they  found  homes  in  this  new  world.  They  were  loyal  to 
the  institutions  under  which  they  had  been  born.  Their  thought 
proved  impracticable.  The  first  churches  in  Massachusetts  Bay 
soon  severed  their  connection  with  the  English  Church,  as  the 
men  of  Plymouth  had  done  before  they  left  England.  After- 
wards, the  colonies  declared  themselves  independent  of  the 
government  also.  The  original  plan,  to  make  the  town  here  the 
metropolis  of  the  province,  was  abandoned.  Still,  the  settle- 
ment was  highly  respectable.  It  was  one  of  the  best  towns  in 
New  England,  and  it  is  reported  that  most  of  the  inhabitants 
were  very  rich.  In  England,  many  of  them  had  been  under 
the  ministry  of  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  who  was  driven  from 
them ;  whereupon,  they  sought  a  new  home  across  the  sea,  which 
they  trusted  he  would  share  with  them.  They  began  to  make 
their  settlement  at  Mount  Wollaston,  and  the  Court  ordered 
them  to  come  to  the  New  Town.  In  1632  a  meeting-house 
was  built,  and  in  1633  Mr.  Hooker  and  Rev.  Samuel  Stone  were 
made  the  ministers  of  the  new  church.  This  was  the  eighth 
church  in  the  Massachusetts  Colony.  But  in  1636  the  minis- 
ters and  most  of  the  church  and  congregation  left  New  Town 
for  Connecticut.  Some  families,  eleven  or  more,  remained  here. 
Fortunately  for  them,  another  company  of  about  sixty  persons 
had  come  from  England,  having  Thomas  Shepard  as  their 
leader.     On  a  mural  tablet  in  the  church  which  bears  his  name 


234      THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

it  is  recorded,  as  it  is  in  Shepard's  autobiography,  that  "  Some 
went  before,  and  writ  to  me  of  providing  a  place  for  a  company 
of  us,  one  of  which  was  John  Bridge."  John  Bridge  was  one  of 
those  who  stayed  behind.  His  statue  now  stands  on  the  Cam- 
bridge Common.  A  part  of  the  original  church  thus  entered 
into  the  new  church,  which  was  formed  in  February,  1636. 
Thomas  Shepard  was  installed  as  the  minister.  It  was  a  notable 
gathering  of  the  chief  men  of  the  colony  when  the  church  was 
organized,  and  it  was  a  notable  event.  It  was  a  Congregational 
church,  and  in  this  reconstructed  form  was  the  eleventh  in 
Massachusetts.  The  form  of  the  covenant  has  not  been  pre- 
served, but  probably  it  was  like  the  one  used  in  Charlestown 
and  Boston,  wherein  the  members  promised  to  walk  "  in  mutual 
love  and  respect  each  to  other,  so  near  as  God  shall  give  us 
grace."  That  was  certainly  a  very  good  beginning,  and  in  its 
seriousness  and  simplicity  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  purpose 
of  those  who  founded  the  colony  and  the  town. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  not  an  isolated  event. 
This  was  a  part  of  the  religious  and  political  movement  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  which  so  greatly  affected 
English  history,  and  made  the  beginning  of  the  new  England 
and  so  of  the  American  republic.  As  it  has  proved,  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  Puritan  church  here  was  to  be  an  important  fact 
in  the  history  of  the  colony,  and  thus  of  the  nation.  It  was  an 
embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  which  Dr.  Palfrey  has  well  said : 
"  It  is  as  old  as  the  truth  and  manliness  of  England." 

That  church  remains  the  First  Church  in  Cambridge.  It  is 
not  proposed  to  recite  its  annals  here.  The  story  has  been  told 
more  than  once.  Yet  a  few  things  which  have  marked  its  past 
may  be  repeated.  The  first  meeting-house  was  not  an  imposing 
building.  We  have  no  plan  of  it.  But  the  meeting-house  in 
Boston  had  mud  walls  and  a  thatched  roof.  This  was,  we  may 
suppose,  very  much  like  that  in  character,  though  it  was  prob- 
ably built  of  logs,  and  in  accordance  with  the  law  the  roof  was 
"covered  with  slate  or  board."  The  chimney  could  not  be 
made  of  wood.  Thus  early  were  they  taking  precaution  against 
fire.  This  house  was  small  and  plain,  especially  if  compared 
with  the  stately  parish  churches  of  England.  But  it  had  a 
rare  dignity  from  the  presence  of  Thomas  Hooker  and  Thomas 
Shepard,  and  the  earnest  exiles  who  were  with  them.  The 
people  of  the  town  were  required  to  come  to  the  meeting-house 


THE  REV.   THOMAS  SHEPARD.  235 

on  the  first  Monday  of  every  month  within  half  an  hour  after 
the  ringing  of  the  bell.  This  would  indicate  that  there  was  a 
bell  on  the  house.  But  when  Edward  Johnson  was  here  in 
1636,  he  wandered  out  from  Charlestown  till  he  came  to  a  large 
plain,  where  he  heard  a  drum.  He  asked  a  man  whom  he  met 
what  the  drum  was  for,  and  was  told  it  was  to  call  people  to 
the  meeting-house  where  Mr.  Shepard  preached.  He  found  his 
way  to  the  place,  and  was  so  deeply  impressed  that  he  resolved 
to  live  and  die  with  the  ministers  of  New  England.  The  town 
and  church  acquired  special  prominence  when  in  the  same  year 
in  which  the  church  was  formed  the  General  Court  agreed  to 
give  four  hundred  pounds,  equal  to  a  year's  rate  of  the  whole 
colony,  a  grant  of  fifty  cents  from  each  of  the  four  thousand 
inhabitants,  towards  a  school  or  college.  The  next  year  it  was 
ordered  that  the  college  should  be  here,  and  in  1638  the  college 
was  opened,  and  Newtown  became  Cambridge.  The  college 
was  founded  here  because  this  was  a  pleasant  and  convenient 
place,  and  the  town  was  "  under  the  orthodox  and  soul-flourish- 
ing ministry  of  Mr.  Thomas  Shepheard."  The  college  was  meant 
to  serve  the  churches,  and  to  give  them  a  learned  ministry  when 
the  first  ministers  should  lie  in  the  dust.  The  ministers  of 
the  church  had  a  constant  influence  in  shaping  the  life  of  the 
college ;  and  the  presence  of  the  college,  with  its  teachers  and 
students,  conferred  a  rare  distinction,  which  has  remained.  A 
very  exciting  and  important  matter  in  the  colony  was  the  arrival 
of  Mrs.  Ann  Hutchinson  in  1634.  She  soon  declared  some  pe- 
culiar views,  which  were  deemed  erroneous  and  hurtful.  Then 
came  a  fierce  dissension,  and  the  colony  was  in  dire  peril.  There 
was  so  much  confusion  in  Boston  that  the  General  Court  met 
here,  and  an  election  was  held  on  the  Common.  Then  an  eccle- 
siastical synod,  the  first  held  in  America,  was  called,  and  met 
here,  in  the  little  meeting-house  on  Dunster  Street,  and  its  ses- 
sions lasted  for  three  weeks.  Eighty-two  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
opinions  were  condemned  with  great  unanimity.  We  can  easily 
imagine  what  the  people  here  were  talking  about  in  those 
days.  In  1648  the  Cambridge  Platform  was  framed.  In  1649 
Thomas  Shepard  died,  and  in  1650  Jonathan  Mitchel  — "  the 
matchless  Mitchel "  —  became  his  siiccessor  in  the  church  and 
parsonage,  and  married  the  widow,  Margaret  Shepard.  In  the 
Quinquennial  Catalogue  of  the  college,  at  the  head  of  the  list  for 
1647,  stands  Jonathan  Mitchel,  A.  M. :  Fellow.     In  that  year, 


236      THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

1650,  the  second  meeting-house  was  built  on  Watchhouse  Hill. 
A  very  sad  event  in  this  pastorate  was  the  declaration  of  Henry 
Dunster,  president  of  the  college,  of  his  new  views  regarding 
the  baptism  of  children.  This  led  to  a  bitter  controversy,  which 
ended  in  Dunster's  resignation  of  his  office  and  his  removal 
from  Cambridge.  But  he  asked  that  his  burial  might  be  in 
Cambridge,  and  so  it  was.  By  a  singular  error,  the  slab  which 
bears  the  record  of  his  virtues  has  been  for  many  years  over 
Mitchel's  grave.  Another  incident  in  this  pastorate  was  the 
setting  off  of  the  people  of  Cambridge  Village,  on  the  south  side 
of  the  river,  and  more  than  four  miles  from  the  meeting-house, 
that  they  might  have  separate  services.  This  was  strongly 
objected  to,  but  at  last,  in  1664,  a  new  church  was  organized, 
and  it  has  had  a  good  history  as  the  First  Church  in  Newton. 
Rev.  Urian  Oakes  was  the  minister  here  from  1671  for  ten 
years,  and  acting-president  and  president  of  the  college  from 
1675  to  1681.  Rev.  Nathaniel  Gookin,  son  of  the  famous 
Major-General  Daniel  Gookin,  assisted  Mr.  Oakes  for  two 
years,  and  followed  him  as  the  pastor  of  the  church  from  1682 
to  1692.  In  his  time,  the  people  of  Cambridge  Farms,  now 
Lexington,  were  begging  to  be  set  off  as  a  separate  precinct,  and 
this  was  granted  in  1691.  In  1696  the  church  at  Lexington 
was  formed.  Thus  the  church  here  was  losing  on  both  sides. 
Rev.  William  Brattle,  a  tutor  in  the  college,  became  the  minis- 
ter in  1696,  and  remained  till  1717.  In  that  time  the  third 
meeting-house  was  erected  where  the  second  had  been.  Then 
came  the  long  pastorate  of  Rev.  Nathaniel  Appleton,  from  1717 
to  1784.  The  fourth  meeting-house  came  in  his  time,  and  on 
the  old  site.  An  Episcopal  church  was  opened  in  1761.  During 
this  time  Whitefield  was  arousing  the  country  by  his  marvel- 
ous preaching.  In  1740  he  came  here,  and  saw  many  things 
which  displeased  him.  The  college  faculty  published  a  pam- 
phlet in  reply  to  his  charges,  and  he  modified  some  of  them. 
He  became  a  friend  of  the  college,  and  was  of  service  in  pro- 
curing books  for  the  library.  There  was  still  further  attempt 
to  reduce  the  church.  In  1732  Menotomy  was  made  a  precinct 
by  itself,  and  in  1739  a  church  was  formed  there.  From  1747 
to  1749  the  people  in  what  is  now  Brighton  were  seeking  to  be 
made  a  separate  religious  precinct.  This  was  stoutly  resisted, 
but  in  1779  the  separate  precinct  was  incorporated,  and  author- 
ized to  settle  a  minister  of  its  own,  and  in  1783  a  new  church 
was  formed. 


MR.  BRATTLE'S  SALARY.  237 

But  the  great  event  of  Dr.  Appleton's  ministry  was  the  Revo- 
lution and  the  beginning  of  the  republic.  Cambridge  had  a 
conspicuous  share  in  all  this  work  of  patriotism.  The  church  had 
its  part  in  the  town  and  for  the  country,  as  from  the  beginning. 
The  lands  of  the  church  appear  frequently  in  the  records  of 
this  period.  There  is  a  catalogue  signed  "  N.  A.,"  and  entitled, 
"  Lands  belonging  to  the  Church  and  Congregation  in  Cam- 
bridge for  the  Use  of  the  Ministry."  There  are  several  lots  in 
Menotomy,  a  lot  of  twenty  acres  in  Newton,  a  farm  of  500  acres 
in  Lexington.  The  Newton  and  Lexington  lands  were  sold  in 
Appleton's  time,  and  the  rest  later. 

The  minister  was  not  paid  altogether  in  money.  Mr,  Brattle 
wrote  in  the  Church  Book :  "  My  salary  from  the  town  is  ninety 
pounds  per  annum,  and  the  overplus  money."  Afterwards  he  had 
£100.  There  are  long  lists  of  donors  of  wood.  The  sending  of 
the  wood  seems  to  have  been  discontinued  at  the  time  his  salary 
was  increased.  In  1697  is  a  long  list  headed,  "Sent  in  since 
Nov.  3,  the  day  that  I  was  married.  From  my  good  neighbors 
in  town."  Then  follows  an  account  of  articles  for  his  table, 
with  the  names  of  the  donors  :  "  Goody  Gove,  1  pd.  Fresh  But- 
ter, Sd.  ;  Docf-  Oliver,  a  line  Pork,  2s. ;  Sarah  Ferguson,  1  pig, 
Is.  9tZ." 

Mr.  Appleton  acknowledges  gifts  made  to  him :  "  My  good 
friends  and  neighbors  have  for  several  years  past,  in  the  fall  of 
the  year,  brought  me  a  considerable  quantity  of  wood  gratis, 
some  years  between  thirty  and  forty  loads,  sometimes  above 
forty  loads."  Then  follow  the  names  of  the  friends  and  the 
quantity  of  the  wood  they  brought.  He  needed  this.  The  times 
were  hard.  He  has  left  a  receipt  for  £3  2s.  to  complete  the 
payment  of  his  salary  in  continental  bills,  "  although  they  are 
exceedingly  depreciated."  His  salary  had  been  XlOO,  and, 
while  the  amount  was  probably  but  little  changed,  he  gave 
receipts  in  one  year  for  X600 ;  and  the  next  year  for  X750 ; 
and  in  1783  for  X2000  paper  currency  and  X25  silver  cur- 
rency. He  lived  to  be  nearly  ninety  years  old.  For  a  few 
months  he  had  a  colleague,  the  Eev.  Timothy  Hilliard,  who 
remained  the  minister  of  the  church  till  1790.  In  January, 
1792,  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes  became  the  pastor.  He  remained  the 
pastor  of  the  church  until  September,  1831.  He  died  in  1837. 
Dr.  Holmes's  pastorate  was  a  period  of  very  great  importance. 
He  was  well  known  as  a  historian,  and  was  active  in  all  public 


238      THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

affairs ;   he  was  greatly  esteemed  in  the  community,  and  his 
name  and  fame  Avent  far  abroad. 

In  1814  a  church  was  formed  in  the  college,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  pastor  and  delegates  of  the  First  Church.  All  was 
done  in  friendliness,  but  it  was  a  serious  withdrawal  of  men  of 
consequence,  and  the  church  must  have  felt  it.  The  services  of 
the  University  church  were  discontinued  after  the  resignation  of 
Rev.  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody.  But  a  much  sadder  experience  came 
fifteen  years  later,  in  1829,  when  the  church  separated  from 
the  parish  and  the  meeting  -  house.  It  was  more  than  forty 
years  after  King's  Chapel,  in  Boston,  had  become  a  Unitarian 
church.  Other  churches  had  adopted  the  new  views.  At  last 
the  crisis  came  here.  The  majority  of  the  parish  dismissed  Dr. 
Holmes,  and  the  church  went  out  with  him.  Some  members 
remained  in  the  old  house,  but  the  church,  acting  "  as  a  church 
in  a  religious  point  of  view,  having  the  ordinances  adminis- 
tered and  other  religious  offices  performed,"  went  out  with 
the  pastor.  There  were,  then,  under  the  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  the  church  as  a  purely  religious  organization,  and 
that  connected  with  the  parish.  These  have  remained  distinct, 
thougli  the  relations  between  them  are  friendly.  They  join  in 
the  annual  Thanksgiving  service,  and  in  1886  united  in  cele- 
brating the  organization  of  the  one  church  in  1636.  The  his- 
tory has  been  traced  to  this  point  with  some  detail,  because  it 
is  continuous  for  two  hundred  and  sixty  years,  and  the  church 
has  lived  and  grown  with  the  village  and  town  and  city.  The 
separation  of  church  and  parish  took  place  while  the  meeting- 
house of  1756  was  the  common  home.  It  was  a  famous  build- 
ing. Of  this  house  President  Quincy  wrote :  "  In  this  edifice 
all  the  public  Commencements  and  solemn  inaugurations,  dur- 
ing more  than  seventy  years,  were  celebrated  ;  and  no  building 
in  Massachusetts  can  compare  with  it  in  the  number  of  distin- 
guished men  who  at  different  times  have  been  assembled  within 
its  walls."  The  names  of  Washington,  Lafayette,  Everett,  and 
others,  readily  come  to  mind.  The  remainder  of  this  part  of 
the  story  can  be  briefly  told.  The  First  Church,  under  Dr. 
Holmes's  ministry,  worshiped  for  a  time  in  the  old  court-house. 
In  December,  1829,  Rev.  Nehemiah  Adams  was  settled  as  Dr. 
Holmes's  colleague,  and  he  remained  as  pastor  after  Dr.  Holmes's 
resignation  in  1831,  and  until  1834.  Meantime  the  house  on 
Mount  Auburn  and  Holyoke  streets  was  erected.    Rev.  John  A. 


THE   UNITARIAN  CHURCH.  239 

Albro  had  a  very  useful  ministry  from  April,  1835,  to  April, 
1865.  In  that  formative  period  he  was  eminent  in  wisdom  and 
discretion.  The  present  pastor,  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie,  was 
installed  January  24,  1867.  The  house  wliieh  is  now  the  home 
of  the  First  Church  was  dedicated  in  1872.  The  Shepard  Con- 
gregational Society,  which  took  the  place  of  the  old  parish 
organization,  was  formed  in  1829.  The  first  parish  and  the 
church  belonging  to  it  remained  in  the  old  meeting-house  untU 
1833,  when  they  removed  to  the  meeting-house  in  Harvard 
Square.  Rev.  William  Newell  became  the  minister  in  1830, 
and  continued  in  his  office  until  1868.  During  this  long  pas- 
torate, and  after  his  retirement,  he  was  held  in  high  esteem  for 
his  learning  and  his  piety,  and  his  fidelity  in  the  duties  of  his 
sacred  calling.  Rev.  Francis  G.  Peabody  was  the  next  minis- 
ter, and  was  followed  by  Rev.  Edward  H.  Hall,  both  of  whom 
most  worthily  served  the  church  and  the  community,  and  are 
held  in  warm  regard.  Rev.  Samuel  M.  Crothers  became  the 
minister  in  June,  1894,  and  in  his  care  the  church  is  enjoying 
an  ample  prosperity.  Whoever  inquires  concerning  the  present 
churches  of  Cambridge  will  find  these,  which  honor  a  common 
ancestry,  and  are  striving  to  perfect  the  work  which  they  have 
inherited. 

But  he  will  find  much  more  than  this.  The  town  has  ad- 
vanced with  the  years,  and  there  are  many  churches  where,  for 
nearly  one  half  of  our  civil  life,  there  was  but  one.  Of  neces- 
sity the  narrative  from  this  point,  embracing  many  churches  in 
the  place  of  one,  must  be  much  briefer  and  more  general.  The 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  was  the  second  of  the  churches 
here.  Several  worthy  gentlemen,  members  of  the  Church  of 
England,  petitioned  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel in  Foreign  Parts,  to  appoint  a  missionary  who  should  per- 
form divine  service  and  administer  religious  ordinances  accord- 
ing to  the  belief  and  usage  of  the  English  Church.  Rev.  East 
Apthorp,  a  Fellow  of  Jesbs  College,  Cambridge,  England,  was 
proposed,  and  was  appointed  in  1759.  In  1761  Christ  Church 
was  opened  for  service.  In  the  time  of  the  Revolution  service 
in  the  church  was  interrupted,  and  the  house  was  used  for  mili- 
tary purposes,  though  an  occasional  service  was  held.  In  1790 
the  house  was  restored,  and  it  has  since  been  enlarged  and 
adorned.  The  longest  ministry  was  that  of  Rev.  Nicholas 
Hoppin,  from  1839  to  1874.     He  stands  worthily  in  this  long 


240      THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

pastorate  with  his  friends,  Dr.  Albro  and  Dr.  Newell.  The 
parish  of  St.  Peter's  Church  was  organized  in  1842.  Its  first 
house  of  worship  was  on  Prospect  Street.  In  1867  the  new 
church  on  Massachusetts  Avenue  was  opened.  St.  James's 
Parish,  in  North  Cambridge,  was  organized  in  1866.  A  mission 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  had  been  sustained  in  that 
part  of  the  city  for  eighteen  months,  under  the  charge  of  the 
Bev.  Andrew  Croswell.  He  was  followed  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Fultz 
and  Rev.  T.  S.  Tyng.  In  1878  Rev.  Edward  Abbott  took 
charge  of  the  parish,  and  has  remained  its  rector.  In  1889  a 
fine  stone  church  was  completed.  The  parish  has  enjoyed  an 
increasing  prosperity  in  its  enlarged  work.  There  are  other 
Episcopal  churches  in  different  parts  of  the  city.  The  Epis- 
copal Theological  School  was  incorporated  in  1867.  This  is 
described  elsewhere.  In  other  parts  of  the  city  Episcopal  ser- 
vices are  sustained.  A  few  years  since  a  Reformed  Episcopal 
Church  was  established  in  Cambridgeport. 

Following  now  the  chronological  order,  early  in  the  century, 
"  the  Port,"  as  it  was  termed,  had  the  promise  of  large  commer- 
cial prosperity,  and  its  expansion  naturally  included  churches. 
That  part  of  the  town  had  been  under  the  parochial  care  of  the 
First  Church  and  its  ministers.  Dr.  Holmes  had  visited  among 
the  people,  distributed  hymn-books  and  catechisms,  and  tried 
in  all  ways  to  be  a  pastor  to  those  who  had  no  other.  Of  course 
this  could  not  long  suffice.  A  new  parish  was  formed  in  1808, 
and  a  church  in  1809  ;  a  meeting-house  was  opened  in  1807. 
Rev.  Thomas  Brattle  Gannett,  who  had  two  good  Cambridge 
names,  was  the  first  minister.  In  the  division  which  came  later 
this  church  placed  itself  upon  the  Unitarian  side.  The  long 
ministry  of  Rev.  George  W.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  has  but  just  closed, 
—  a  man  held  in  reverence  by  all  who  knew  him.  Other  Unita- 
rian churches  have  since  been  organized  in  different  parts  of 
the  city,  but  only  these  two  are  holding  services  at  the  present 
time.  The  first  Methodist  Episcopal  Society  was  formed  in 
East  Cambridge  in  1813,  and  is  doing  an  important  work  in 
that  ward,  while  other  Methodist  churches  are  busily  engaged 
in  different  parts  of  the  city.  The  Methodists  have  recently 
erected  a  fine  stone  meeting-house  on  Massachusetts  Avenue. 
The  first  Baptist  church  was  formed  in  1817,  in  Cambridge- 
port,  and  it  is  pursuing  its  work  with  vigor  in  Central  Square  and 
out  from  that  centre.     Every  ward  of  the  city  has  one  or  more 


THE  OTHER  CHURCHES.  241 

Baptist  churches.  The  first  Universalist  church  was  estab- 
lished in  Cambridgeport  iii  1822,  though  services  under  that 
name  had  been  held  in  a  schoolhouse  for  some  years  before. 
The  first  pastor  was  the  Rev.  Thomas  Whittemore,  who  was 
widely  known  in  connection  \vitli  his  denomination  and  in  other 
spheres  of  activity.  The  honored  and  now  venerable  Dr.  L.  R. 
Paiee  was  the  efficient  minister  of  this  church.  Two  other 
churches  of  this  order  are  doing  their  work  in  East  Cambridge 
and  North  Cambridge.  Before  the  separation  of  the  First 
Church  from  the  First  Parish,  but  while  the  controversy  which 
resulted  in  that  was  becoming  very  serious,  a  second  Congrega- 
tional church  was  formed,  the  first  of  this  order  in  Cambridge- 
port.  This  was  in  1827.  A  meeting-house  was  built  on  Nor- 
folk Street,  and  in  1852  a  more  stately  house  on  Prospect 
Street,  where  the  church  now  has  its  seat.  Among  its  minis- 
ters have  been  Rev.  William  A.  Stearns,  one  of  the  most  hon- 
ored and  useful  citizens  of  the  town,  and  afterwards  president 
of  Amherst  College ;  and  the  Rev.  David  N.  Beach,  who  after 
eleven  years  of  vigorous  service,  in  which  the  interests  of  the 
city  have  known  his  influence,  has  just  transferred  his  work 
to  another  part  of  the  land.  Other  churches  have  been  formed, 
three  in  Cambridgeport  and  one  in  North  Cambridge,  and  there 
are  thus  six  Congregational  churches  in  the  city. 

The  history  of  the  Roman  Catholic  churches  will  be  written 
by  another  hand.  But  it  is  fitting  here  also  to  recognize  the 
Catholic  clergymen  who  have  been  prominent  as  useful  citizens, 
and  especially  those  who  have  joined  with  their  Protestant  neigh- 
bors in  the  no  license  movement,  which  has  been  so  marked  a 
feature  of  our  municipal  life. 

In  1888  the  services  of  the  New  Jerusalem  Church  were  estab- 
lished in  Cambridge,  and  not  long  after  the  theological  school 
of  that  church  was  removed  here.  The  school  is  well  placed 
upon  Quincy  Street.  In  its  chapel  there  are  public  services  on 
Sunday,  in  the  care  of  Rev.  Theodore  F.  Wright,  Ph.  D.,  pro- 
fessor and  dean  of  the  school. 

The  First  United  Presbyterian  Church  holds  its  services  in 
a  chapel  in  Inman  Square,  and  the  Reformed  Presbyterian 
Church  in  a  hall  on  Massachusetts  Avenue.  The  Union  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  is  also  holding  its  meetings  in  a  hall. 
The  Swedes  have  services  for  their  own  people.  There  are 
other  religious  services,  in  which  the  preferences  and  necessities 


242      THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

of  good  men  and  women  are  fully  regarded.  The  colored  resi- 
dents of  the  city  have  two  Methodist  churches  and  one  Baptist 
church  in  Cambridgeport,  and  a  mission  on  Plympton  Street, 
and  they  are  carrying  on  their  useful  work  with  a  very  generous 
zeal. 

It  is  not  in  the  province  of  this  article  to  speak  of  the  vari- 
ous organizations  for  philanthropic  and  educational  work  which 
may  be  found  in  Cambridge.  The  Social  Union,  the  Prospect 
Union,  the  Avon  Home,  the  two  Homes  for  Old  Ladies,  the 
Cambridge  Hospital,  all  have  their  place.  The  East  End  Mis- 
sion, besides  its  other  work,  has  a  flourishing  Union  Sunday- 
school.  But  a  more  distinct  mention  should  hei-e  be  made  of 
two  institutions  whose  work  is  of  many  kinds,  but  which  give  the 
most  prominent  place  to  direct  religious  service  and  services. 
The  first  is  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  which  was 
organized  in  1883,  and  which  has  a  large  and  vigorous  member- 
ship. Its  influence  will  be  greatly  enlarged  when  it  enters  the 
new  building  which  is  at  once  to  be  erected.  The  other  is  the 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  which  was  formed  in 
1891.  The  name  indicates  its  purpose,  and  its  purpose  and 
achievement  justify  its  name.  It  is  doing  a  broad  and  much 
needed  work  for  young  women.  It  has  a  wide  field,  and  could 
greatly  enlarge  its  efficiency  if  it  had  a  building  of  its  own. 
This  is  at  once  its  desert  and  its  necessity. 

It  is  evident  that  any  one  who  wishes  to  find  in  Cambridge 
a  place  in  which  he  can  invest  his  benevolent  energies  can 
readily  do  so.  Any  one  who  seeks  here  a  congenial  religious 
home,  a  church  with  whose  worship  and  work  he  can  ally  him- 
seK,  where  he  can  minister  and  be  ministered  unto,  can  without 
difficulty  find  it. 

It  must  be  remembered  by  those  who  would  understand  our 
history  that  Cambridge  virtually  began  as  a  church.  The  insti- 
tutions of  religion,  at  first  in  simple  forms,  have  been  here  from 
the  beginning.  They  have  increased  with  the  increase  of  the 
town.  They  have  come  quietly,  as  there  were  those  who  needed 
them,  and  have  taken  their  own  place  in  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity. Indeed,  the  growth  of  the  town,  not  merely  in  numbers 
but  in  diversity  also,  can  be  very  well  traced  in  the  successive 
appearance  of  the  various  churches  which  have  arisen.  The  start- 
ing was  informal,  in  a  simi)le  Congregational  church.  When,  a 
century  and  a  quarter  later,  the  Church  of  England  gi-anted  the 


NEW  ELEMENTS  AND  GROWTH.  243 

request  for  a  minister,  it  was  clear  that  a  new  element  had  come 
into  the  Massachusetts  town,  and  that  others  besides  the  Puri- 
tans were  here.  A  change  in  theological  thought,  at  a  later 
day,  is  disclosed  by  the  presence  of  a  Unitarian  church. 

The  extension  of  the  town  away  from  the  centre  is  made  evi- 
dent by  churches  remote  from  the  college.  They  have  come  up 
among  new  homes  in  a  natural  way,  and  as  they  were  required. 
The  present  extension  of  the  city  means  the  forming  of  more 
churches  where  new  houses  are  rising  along  new  streets.  The 
fifty  years  of  our  life  as  a  city  have  given  us  nearly  every  house 
of  worship  that  we  have,  and  every  minister.  The  present  form 
of  ecclesiastical  life,  so  far  as  men  and  buildings  are  concerned, 
and  even  so  far  as  methods  of  work  are  concerned,  belongs  in 
a  large  degree  within  these  fifty  years.  What  the  future  is  to 
bring  it  were  useless  to  predict.  It  seems  likely  to  bring  expan- 
sion rather  than  change.  But  there  is  every  reason  to  expect 
that  the  churches  will  increase  with  the  growth  of  the  city ;  that, 
as  in  the  past,  they  will  share  the  common  life ;  that  they  will 
promote  intelligence  and  virtue,  and  the  best  citizenship ;  that 
churches  and  ministers  will  guard  the  honor  of  the  city,  main- 
tain its  laws,  and  in  all  ways  promote  its  weU-being. 


THE  CATHOLICS  AND  THEIR  CHURCHES. 

By  judge  CHAHLES  J.  McINTIRE. 

For  more  than  tenscore  years  and  ten  after  Governor  Win- 
throp  and  his  associates  sailed  up  the  Charles  River  and  found 
a  suitable  spot  on  which  to  plant  their  fortified  Newe  Towne, 
the  Catholics  had  not  attained  sufficient  numbers  to  erect  a 
church  within  its  limits.  Up  to  the  year  1842  our  citizens  of 
that  faith  were  obliged  to  attend  either  the  cathedral  on  Frank- 
lin Street  in  Boston,  erected  in  1803,  or  the  church  in  Charles- 
town,  which  followed  it  in  1828. 

While  the  original  Puritan  settlers  of  the  colony  were  living, 
there  was  little  inducement  for  Catholics  to  come  and  abide 
with  them,  and  if  either  Miles  Standish,  William  Mullins,  his 
daughter  Priscilla,  or  our  own  doughty  captain  and  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  "  Newe  Towne  "  forces,  Daniel  Patrick,  ever 
attended  upon  the  services  of  the  "  Roman  Church  "  in  any  por- 
tion of  what  is  now  called  the  "  United  Kingdom,"  they  cer- 
tainly never  did  so  here,  and  they  probably  said  very  little  of 
their  past  experience. 

The  first  record  of  Catholic  worship  in  the  colony  is  at  the 
time  of  the  visit  of  Father  Duillettes  to  Boston  as  a  commis- 
sioner from  Canada,  in  1650.  He  was  entertained  at  the  resi- 
dence of  Major-General  Gibbons  while  making  negotiations  for 
a  treaty  of  alliance. 

From  this  time  there  were  probably  no  Catholic  services  until 
they  were  held  upon  the  ships  of  the  French  fleet  in  the  harbor 
during  the  Revolutionary  War,  when  the  people,  following 
the  noble  example  of  Washington,  had  become  very  tolerant  in 
the  presence  of  Lafayette  and  the  many  French,  Polish,  and 
other  European  Catholic  officers  and  soldiers  who  had  espoused 
our  cause  of  liberty. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  Catholics  in  and  about 
Boston  purchased  the  chapel  on  School  Street  which  had  been 


THE  REV.  JOHN  DE  CHEVERUS.  245 

used  by  the  Huguenots,  aud  occupied  it  until  the  erection  of  the 
church  on  Franklin  Street,  under  the  ministrations  of  Father 
Porterie,  who  had  been  a  chaplain  in  the  French  navy,  Father 
Rousselet,  and  afterwards  the  Rev.  John  Thayer,  who  was  a 
native  of  Boston  and  a  convert  to  the  faith.  In  1792  the  Rev. 
Francis  Matignon,  who  was  an  exile  of  the  French  Revolution, 
was  sent  from  Baltimore  by  Bishop  Carroll,  to  aid  Father 
Thayer,  and  remained  down  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1818. 
The  whole  of  New  England  was  placed  under  the  spiritual  guid- 
ance of  these  two  priests,  and  they  were  constant  and  earnest 
workers  in  the  field  assigned  to  them.  Doctor  Matignon  was 
a  pious,  profound,  and  talented  scholar,  and  a  refined  and  accom- 
plished gentleman.  He  endeared  himself  so  much  to  the  peo- 
ple that  his  death  was  sincerely  mourned  by  all  classes  and 
creeds. 

In  1796,  through  the  solicitations  of  Father  Matignon,  the 
Rev.  John  de  Cheverus,  who  had  also  been  driven  by  the  revo- 
lutionists from  France,  and  had  been  in  England  since  1792, 
came  to  this  country.  He  first  went  among  the  Indians  as  a 
missionary,  but  in  1798  he  joined  Father  Matignon,  and  aided 
in  the  erection  of  the  church  on  Franklin  Street,  which  was 
afterwards  to  be  his  cathedral,  and  the  first  in  New  England. 
Generous  contributions  for  this  structure  were  made  by  Protes- 
tant citizens,  among  others  by  John  Adams,  then  President  of 
the  United  States. 

In  1808  New  England  was  severed  from  the  diocese  of  Balti- 
more, Boston  was  erected  into  an  Episcopal  see,  and  Dr.  de 
Cheverus  made  its  first  bishop.  He  remained  in  charge  of  this 
diocese  until  1823,  when  he  returned  to  his  native  country  as 
Bishop  of  Montauban.  A  few  years  later  he  was  created  Arch- 
bishop of  Bordeaux,  Cardinal  and  Peer  of  the  Realm. 

Cardinal  Cheverus  was  a  noble  and  charming  character.  He 
was  learned,  but  not  pedantic ;  firm  and  decided,  yet  amiable, 
benign,  and  meek.  He  delighted  in  the  company  of  children, 
who  were  his  constant  companions.  A  scholar  and  a  polished 
scion  of  a  noble  family,  it  was  his  constant  practice  to  go  unat- 
tended among  the  poor  and  sick,  look  personally  after  their 
needs,  and  make  them  forget  their  afflictions  and  poverty  by  his 
example  of  c|iarity  and  humility. 

In  1825  the  Rev.  Benedict  Joseph  Fenwick  was  appointed 
Bishop  of  Boston,  and  was  consecrated  on  November  1.     He 


246  THE  CATHOLICS  AND  THEIR   CHURCHES. 

was  a  native  of  Maryland,  and  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  early 
English  settlers  under  Leonard  Calvert.  He,  too,  was  a  pro- 
found scholar,  a  wise  and  prudent  counselor,  and  a  humble  and 
zealous  prelate. 

Down  to  the  year  1793  the  Catholics  of  Cambridge  were 
obliged,  in  order  to  attend  their  church,  either  to  row  across  the 
river,  or  to  go  around  through  Roxbury,  entering  Boston  by  the 
way  of  "  The  Neck,"  which  latter  joui'ney  was  eight  miles  in 
length,  as  Abraham  Ireland  measured  it,  and  marked  it  upon 
the  milestone  which  now  stands  inside  the  fence  of  the  old 
burial  ground  at  Harvard  Square  ;  for  there  was  no  other  bridge 
until  the  West  Boston  Bridge  was  constructed  in  that  year. 

ST.  John's  parish,  and  church  of  the  sacred  heart. 

In  1828  Cambridge  was  made  a  part  of  the  parish  of  Saint 
Mary's  Church  at  Charlestown,  and  her  people  attended  ser- 
vices in  the  church  of  that  name  upon  Richmond  Street,  placed 
under  the  charge  of  Father  Byrne,  —  the  bridge  between  East 
Cambridge  and  Boston  having  been  completed  in  1809,  and 
that  to  Prison  Point  in  Charlestown  in  1819.  A  Sunday-school 
was  organized  about  1830  in  the  Methodist  Academy  building, 
at  the  corner  of  Otis  and  Fourth  streets,  and  Mr.  Daniel  H. 
Southwick  was  its  first  superintendent.  The  children,  after 
their  lessons  on  each  Sunday,  were  formed  in  line  and  marched 
to  the  Charlestown  church,  to  take  part  in  the  services  there. 

About  the  year  1836,  in  consequence  of  the  erection  of  the 
new  bridge,  the  glass  works,  and  the  pottery  works,  which  had 
been  established,  a  number  of  Catholic  families  had  gathered 
at  Lechmere  Point  (or  East  Cambridge),  in  Cambridgeport, 
and  Somerville,  and  on  June  11  of  that  year  Mr.  Southwick 
secured  a  small  parcel  of  land,  twenty-five  by  one  hundred  feet, 
on  the  westerly  side  of  Fourth  Street,  near  Otis  Street,  and 
conveyed  it  to  the  bishop  on  July  29,  with  the  intention  of 
securing  more  and  erecting  a  church.  No  general  action,  how- 
ever, was  taken  in  the  matter  until  January  17,  1842,  when  the 
parishioners  were  called  together  to  take  into  consideration  the 
propriety  of  erecting  a  new  church.  This  meeting  was  held  at 
the  Academy  building,  and  it  was  voted  necessary  to  erect  a 
church  at  East  Cambridge.  A  committee  of  three  was  appointed 
to  wait  upon  the  bishop  and  inform  him  of  their  action,  and  to 
ask  the  services  of  a  priest.     Thirty-six  hundred  dollars  was 


ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCH,  EAST  CAMBRIDGE.  247 

subscribed  at  this  meeting,  and  it  was  adjourned  to  meet  on  the 
30th.  On  the  30th  Bishop  Fenwick,  the  Rev.  John  B.  Fitzpat- 
rick,  and  Rev.  P.  Byrne  met  with  them  ;  they  were  encouraged 
to  pursue  the  work  so  well  begun,  and  Father  Fitzpatrick  was 
assigned  to  assist  them  and  to  become  their  pastor. 

Messrs.  Southwick,  Gleeson,  John  W.  Loring,  Lawrence  B. 
Watts,  and  James  Casey  were  appointed  a  building  committee, 
and  Messrs.  Southwick,  Loring,  and  Gleeson  a  committee  to 
select  and  secure  a  site.  A  lot  on  the  easterly  side  of  Fourth 
Street,  near  to  Otis,  was  secured,  and,  at  a  meeting  held  on 
February  20,  it  was  voted  that  the  name  of  "  St.  John's 
Church  "  be  given  to  the  structure  to  be  erected.  On  March 
19  the  deed  of  a  lot  of  land  seventy  by  one  hundred  feet  from 
Amos  Binney  to  Bishop  Fenwick  was  passed.  The  building 
committee  commenced  and  vigorously  prosecuted  their  work,  so 
that  services  were  held  in  the  basement  October  9,  by  Father 
Fitzpatrick.  On  September  3,  1843,  the  structure,  being  com- 
plete, was  dedicated  by  the  bishop. 

Father  Fitzpatrick  remained  as  pastor  until  early  in  1844, 
when  he  was  made  coadjutor-bishop  of  the  diocese,  and  returned 
to  Boston.  The  parish,  as  originally  constituted,  comprised  the 
entire  towns  of  Cambridge  and  Somerville.  On  April  22, 1844, 
the  Rev.  Manasses  P.  Dougherty  was  appointed  pastor,  and  on 
August  11,  1846,  Bishop  Fenwick  died,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Father  Fitzpatrick,  his  coadjutor,  who  had  been  the  first  priest 
of  the  first  Catholic  church  in  Cambridge. 

In  1847  Woburn  was  added  to  the  parish,  and  Father 
Magrath  was  sent  as  an  assistant.  At  this  time  the  Catholic 
population  had  become  so  numerous  in  Old  Cambridge  that 
they  desired  to  have  a  church  of  their  own,  and  Father  Dough- 
erty was  commissioned  to  erect  one  there,  and  take  charge  of  a 
new  parish  comprising  the  territory  now  known  as  Old  Cam- 
bridge and  North  Cambridge.  He  left  St.  John's  parish  in 
November,  1848,  and  in  December  held  services  for  the  first 
time  in  his  new  church  of  St.  Peter.  The  Rev.  George  F. 
Riorden  succeeded  Father  Dougherty  in  November  as  pastor  of 
St.  John's,  and  remained  until  December,  1851,  when  he  was 
succeeded  in  turn  by  the  Rev.  Lawrence  Carroll,  who  with 
patience,  ability,  and  zeal  devoted  himself  constantly  to  the 
needs  of  his  large  and  increasing  parish  up  to  the  time  of  his 
decease  on  November  23,  1858.     He  is  remembered  as  one  of 


248  THE   CATHOLICS  AND   THEIR   CHURCHES. 

the  kindest  and  most  genial  of  men,  who  filled  the  atmosphere 
about  him  with  his  cheerful  presence.  Seventeen  days  before 
his  death,  his  assistant.  Father  Farren,  who  had  been  with  him 
for  about  a  year,  but  all  the  time  in  poor  health,  had  also  died. 

During  the  illness  of  Father  Carroll,  and  after  his  decease, 
until  January  7,  1859,  the  Rev.  George  F.  Haskins  acted  as 
temporary  pastor ;  on  the  latter  date,  the  Rev.  Francis  Bran- 
igan  received  the  permanent  appointment.  He  remained  about 
two  years,  and  during  that  time  purchased  land  and  com- 
menced the  erection  of  St.  Mary's  Church  in  Cambridgeport. 
In  December,  1860,  he  resigned,  and  died  soon  after.  For  a 
number  of  months  the  parish  was  without  a  permanent  pastor, 
during  which  period  its  spiritual  wants  were  supplied  by  the 
Rev.  Joseph  Coyle.     He  died  on  November  21,  1862. 

Early  in  1862  the  Rev.  John  W.  Donohue  was  appointed, 
and  assumed  the  duties  of  pastor.  In  1866  the  Cambridge- 
port  parish  was  set  off.  In  1870  Somerville  was  created  a 
separate  parish,  reducing  the  parish  of  St.  John's  to  its  present 
dimensions,  comprising  the  whole  of  East  Cambridge  and  that 
part  of  Cambridgeport  which  lies  between  the  Grand  Junction 
Railroad,  Windsor  Street,  and  the  Broad  Canal. 

The  number  of  the  parishioners  continued  to  increase  so  rap- 
idly that  the  church  on  Fourth  Street  could  not  sufficiently 
accommodate  them,  and  in  1872  Bishop  Williams,  the  successor 
of  Bishop  Fitzpatrick,  bought  a  lot  of  land  on  Spring  Street 
for  the  purpose  of  erecting  a  new  church,  but  the  health  of 
Father  Donohue  did  not  permit  him  to  pursue  the  work,  and  he 
died  on  March  5,  1873.  During  the  eleven  years  of  his  pas- 
torate the  affairs  of  the  parish  were  well  conducted,  and  never 
was  St,  John's  Church  in  a  more  prosperous  condition  than 
at  the  time  of  his  decease.  Fathers  Rossi  and  Shinnick  were 
his  assistants. 

On  the  8th  of  March  the  Rev.  John  O'Brien  was  taken  from 
Concord  and  appointed  to  the  parish  of  St.  John's,  the  bishop 
recognizing  in  him  the  eminent  qualifications  necessary  for  the 
charge  of  this  parish  and  the  erection  of  a  new  and  spacious 
church,  such  as  was  contemplated.  After  a  meeting  of  the 
parishioners,  when  it  was  found  that  the  lot  purchased  by  the 
bishop  was  unsuited  in  some  particulars,  a  site  at  the  corner 
of  Otis  and  Sixth  streets  was  secured,  and  purchased  on  July 
23.     No  delay  was  made,  and  the  foundation  was  finished  and 


ST.  PETER'S   CHURCH.  249 

the  corner-stone  of  the  new  edifice  laid  on  October  4,  1874. 
On  January  28,  1883,  the  entire  structure  was  completed  and 
dedicatory  services  held. 

This  is  the  "  Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart,"  the  largest  and 
handsomest  Catholic  church  in  the  city,  of  the  decorated  Gothic 
style,  seventy-five  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  dimension, 
built  of  blue  slate  with  trimmings  of  granite.  The  nave  is 
sixty-five  feet  high,  and  the  spire  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet. 
There  is  a  seating  capacity  of  eighteen  hundred,  and  the  beau- 
tifid  and  artistic  Gothic  altar  of  Caen  stone  was  especially 
modeled  in  London  by  eminent  sculptors.  It  stands  fifty  feet 
in  height,  and  contains  four  groups  of  figures,  representing  the 
life  of  the  Saviour,  sculptured  in  almost  human  size.  This  par- 
ish numbers  between  twelve  and  fifteen  thousand  souls.  Father 
O'Brien  is  still  the  pastor  in  charge,  and  is  assisted  by  five  cu- 
rates. 

THE   PARISH    OF   ST.    PETER's   CHURCH. 

As  before  stated,  in  the  year  1847  the  Rev.  Manasses  P. 
Dougherty,  while  pastor  of  the  parish  of  the  Church  of  St. 
John,  in  East  Cambridge,  recognizing  the  necessity  of  church 
facilities  for  those  of  his  flock  who  were  settled  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  city,  secured  a  site  upon  Concord  Avenue,  and 
commenced  the  erection  of  a  church,  to  be  called  after  St. 
Peter.  This  building  had  progressed  so  rapidly  that  in  Novem- 
ber, 1848,  Father  Dougherty  gave  up  his  charge  of  the  parish 
of  St.  John's  for  the  parish  set  off  from  it,  and  in  December 
of  that  year  services  were  held  in  his  new  church,  which  was 
consecrated  in  1849.  Fatber  Dougherty  continued  as  pastor 
of  this  parish  until  his  death  in  July,  1877.  He  was  greatly 
esteemed  in  and  beyond  his  parish  for  his  generosity  and  piety. 

The  Rev.  James  E.  O'Brien  was  appointed  to  take  charge  in 
the  same  month  as  the  decease  of  Father  Dougherty,  and  he 
remained  in  charge  until  death  removed  him  in  Jidy,  1888, 
when  he  was  followed  by  the  present  pastor,  the  Rev.  John 
Flatley,  who  is  assisted  by  Fathers  Doody  and  Flaherty  as 
curates.  Father  Flatley  has  been  most  assiduous  in  his  pas- 
toral duties,  and  is  held  in  high  esteem  and  veneration.  Through 
his  constant  efforts  and  encouragement  three  new  parishes  have 
been  created  within  the  past  six  years  out  of  the  territory 
of  St.  Peter's.  They  are  known  as  St.  John's,  on  Rindge 
Avenue,  North  Cambridge ;  Notre  Dame  de  Pitie,  the  French 


260  THE  CATHOLICS  AND   THEIR   CHURCHES. 

congregation  in  the  same  locality ;  and  the  Church  of  the  Sa- 
cred Heart,  which  is  on  the  border  of  Cambridge,  in  that  part 
of  Watertown  known  as  Mount  Auburn.  St.  Peter's  parish 
has  a  population  of  about  twenty-five  hundred  people. 

THE  PARISH   OF   ST.  MARY'S   CHURCH,    NORFOLK    STREET. 

This  parish  was  created  partly  from  St.  John's  and  partly 
from  St.  Peter's.  It  was  set  off  and  made  an  independent 
parish  in  the  year  1866.  In  1860  the  Rev.  Francis  Brani- 
gan,  as  pastor  of  St.  John's,  purchased  land  at  the  corner 
of  Harvard  and  Norfolk  streets,  and  it  was  his  intention  and 
desire  to  erect  a  church  for  those  of  his  people  who  re- 
sided in  that  locality ;  but  his  illness  and  resignation,  which 
soon  followed,  interfered  with  the  project,  and  it  was  delayed 
until  the  bishop  gave  permission  to  Father  Dougherty,  of  St. 
Peter's,  to  go  on  with  the  work.  He  organized  the  new  parish 
early  in  1866,  commenced  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  church 
on  June  7,  and  the  corner-stone  was  laid  by  Bishop  Williams 
July  15  of  that  year.  Father  Dougherty  performed  the  duties 
of  pastor  of  this  church  and  congregation,  together  with  those 
of  his  own,  until  May,  1867,  when  the  parish  was  given  to  the 
Rev.  T.  Scully,  who  took  formal  charge  June  9,  1867.  The 
work  of  completing  the  church  building  was  pushed  vigor- 
ously by  him,  so  that  the  structure  was  ready  for  the  services 
of  dedication  on  Sunday,  March  8,  1868.  Since  1867  he  has 
remained  the  pastor,  and  the  parish  has  from  time  to  time 
added  largely  to  its  property,  including  a  convent  school  for 
girls  in  charge  of  the  sisters  of  Notre  Dame,  a  school  for  boys, 
a  hall  for  parish  purposes,  and  a  gymnasium.  The  population 
belonging  to  this  church  numbers  between  twelve  and  fifteen 
thousand. 

THE   PARISH   OF   ST.  PAUL'S   CHURCH,    MOUNT   AUBURN  STREET. 

A  few  years  after  the  erection  of  St.  Mary's  church  in  Cam- 
bridgeport,  Father  Dougherty  saw  the  necessity  of  another 
church  building  to  accommodate  his  rapidly  increasing  parish- 
ioners properly,  and  in  1873  he  accordingly  purchased  the  meet- 
ing-house at  the  corner  of  Mount  Auburn  and  Holyoke  streets, 
which  had  long  been  used  by  the  Shepard  Congregational  soci- 
ety. After  some  alterations  he  opened  it  for  worship  during 
the  same  year,  and  gathered  as  its  congregation  about  two 


FRENCH-SPEAKING  CATHOLICS.  251 

thousand  souls.     In  1875  it  was  set  off  as  a  separate  parish, 
with  the  Rev.  William  Orr  as  its  resident  pastor. 

Father  Orr,  assisted  by  two  curates.  Fathers  Coan  and  Ryan, 
is  still  directing  its  affairs.  He  has  added  the  property  on 
Mount  Auburn  Street,  known  as  the  "  Gordon  McKay  estate," 
and  erected  a  large  school  upon  it.  He  contemplates  within  a 
short  time  placing  also  upon  this  site  a  commodious  new  church. 
This  parish  now  numbers  about  four  thousand. 

THE  NEW   ST,    JOHN's    PARISH,   RINDGE   AVENUE. 

The  rapid  increase  of  the  congregation  of  St.  Peter's  church 
had  again  made  that  structure  too  small  at  the  time  Father 
Flatley  was  appointed  to  be  its  pastor,  and  soon  after  taking 
charge  of  the  parish,  he  began  to  interest  his  people  to  secure 
additional  facilities  for  worship.  A  lot  was  purchased  upon 
Riudge  Avenue  of  sufficient  size  for  a  church  and  convent 
school,  and  in  the  summer  of  1890  work  was  begun  upon  the 
chapel  and  school  building.  The  chapel  was  completed  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1892,  and  has  a  seating  capacity  of  eight  hundred. 

Father  Flatley  continued  to  attend  to  the  religious  needs  of 
the  congregation  until  the  district  was  set  off  and  a  parish  cre- 
ated on  January  1,  1893,  when  the  Rev.  John  B.  Halloran  was 
appointed  its  pastor.  He  still  remains  in  charge,  and  has  one 
assistant,  Rev.  Michael  Welch.  All  that  part  of  Cambridge 
which  lies  north  of  the  main  line  of  the  Fitchburg  Railroad, 
together  with  West  Somerville,  is  contained  in  this  parish,  which 
numbers  almost  three  thousand  souls. 

THE   CHURCH   OF   NOTRE   DAME   DE   TITlt^   HARVEY   STREET. 

The  brick-making  and  other  industries  of  Cambridge  and 
Somerville  have  caused  the  collection  of  large  numbers  of 
French-speaking  Catholics  from  the  Canadas  in  the  northern 
portion  of  our  city  and  in  Somerville.  These  people,  feeling 
themselves  sufficiently  strong  to  constitute  a  separate  congrega- 
tion, obtained  permission  from  the  archbishop  to  erect  a  church, 
and  work  was  begim  in  June,  1892.  It  was  completed  and  the 
building  dedicated  on  December  8,  1892.  The  Rev.  Elphege 
Godin,  S.  M.,  was  its  first  pastor.  He  was  followed  by  the 
Rev.  Stephen  Artland,  S.  M.,  and  by  Rev.  T.  J.  Remy,  S.  M. 
The  present  pastor  is  the  Rev.  Henri  Audiffred,  S.  M.,  ap- 
pointed in  October,  1895.     The  capacity  of  this  church  is  six 


252  THE  CATHOLICS  AND   THEIR   CHURCHES. 

hundred.  Last  year  a  parochial  residence  was  erected.  The 
congregation  is  composed  of  the  French-speaking  people  of 
Cambridge  and  Somerville,  and  is  fast  increasing  in  numbers. 

THE   NEW   CHURCH    AND    PARISH    OF   THE    SACRED    HEART,    AT 
MOUNT    AUBURN. 

This  parish  was  taken  from  Cambridge  and  Watertown,  and 
is  bounded  in  Cambridge  by  Coolidge,  Elmwood,  Lexington, 
and  Concord  avenues.  The  church  building  is  in  Watertown, 
but  the  larger  portion  of  the  congregation  are  inhabitants  of 
Cambridge.  On  August  27,  1893,  the  corner-stone  of  this  edi- 
fice was  laid,  the  construction  having  been  placed  in  charge 
of  the  Rev.  Robert  P.  Stack,  of  Watertown.  This  church  is 
not  yet  completed,  though  services  have  been  held  there  since 
January  1,  1894.  After  the  decease  of  Father  Stack,  the  Rev. 
Thomas  W.  Coughlin  was  appointed  its  pastor,  and  a  parish 
was  created  January  1,  1896.  Capacity,  five  hundred.  Cath- 
olic population  of  parish,  seven  hundred  and  fifty. 

THE   CATHOLIC   UNION. 

The  Catholic  Union  was  founded  in  1894 ;  its  purpose  is  liter- 
ary and  social,  and  to  improve  the  Catholic  people  of  Cambridge. 
It  has  a  membership  of  two  hundred  and  fourteen,  and  during 
the  winter  lectures  on  Catholic  subjects  are  given,  and  they  are 
open  to  the  public.  Edmimd  Reardon  is  president,  and  Wil- 
liam M.  Wadden  recording  secretary. 

TEMPERANCE   AND   CHARITABLE   SOCIETIES. 

Each  of  the  several  Catholic  parishes  in  Cambridge  has  a 
temperance  society,  and  also  a  branch  of  the  society  of  Saint 
Vincent  de  Paul  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  and  all  these  are 
quietly  and  assiduously  doing  good  work.  The  temperance  soci- 
ety in  East  Cambridge  was  founded  by  Father  Matthew  him- 
self in  December,  1849,  upon  his  visit  to  this  country,  and  is 
named  after  that  great  apostle  of  temperance.  It  is  the  oldest 
and  largest  in  the  archdiocese,  one  of  the  oldest  Catholic  total 
abstinence  societies  in  the  United  States,  and  has  been  the 
example  and  mainstay  of  the  temperance  cause  among  the 
Catholics  in  Massachusetts  from  its  beginning.  It  has  a  pres- 
ent membership  of  about  three  hundred  and  fifty,  which  in- 
cludes some  of  the  best  business  and  professional  men  in  the 
parish. 


AN  EXAMPLE  TO  BE  NOTED.  253 


CONCLUSION. 

The  foregoing  shows  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Catholic  popu- 
lation in  our  city.  When  the  charter  was  granted  in  1846, 
there  existed  but  one  Catholic  church,  and  this  had  been  erected 
less  than  four  years,  and  seated  only  about  six  hundred  people. 
There  were  then  fourteen  Protestant  churches,  two  of  which  had 
been  founded  as  far  back  as  1636.  In  the  present  year  of  1896 
there  are  seven  Catholic  and  forty-two  Protestant  churches  and 
chapels,  and  the  Catholic  population  numbers  about  thirty-five 
thousand. 

Few  of  all  these  people  can  trace  their  lineage  in  this  country 
further  back  than  two  or  three  generations,  yet  all  are  num- 
bered among  the  most  ardent  lovers  of  our  country  and  its  in- 
stitutions. The  proportion  of  Catholic  soldiers  from  Cambridge 
in  the  late  war  much  exceeded  their  ratio  of  the  population. 
Our  Catholic  citizens  have  lived  together  with  their  Protestant 
brothers  as  children,  youths,  and  adults,  in  amity  and  peace; 
have  sat  by  them  in  the  same  schools  and  university,  entered 
into  friendly  competition  in  the  same  pursuits,  and  fought  by 
their  side  both  in  battle  and  political  strife ;  men,  women,  and 
ministers  of  every  creed,  hand  in  hand,  have  engaged  in  the 
same  charities,  and  in  struggles  for  temperance  and  for  good 
government.  In  Cambridge,  since  it  became  a  city,  there  has 
existed  the  greatest  charity  between  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
the  most  intelligent  of  both  being  conspicuous  for  their  example 
of  good-will  and  toleration ;  each  freely  granting  to  the  other 
perfect  freedom  of  conscience  and  of  worsliip  according  to  their 
faith.  This  example  is  one  to  which  the  citizens  of  our  be- 
loved municipality  are  proud  to  call  attention,  for  it  forms  a 
part  of  what  has  been  styled,  and  is  widely  known  as,  "  The 
Cambridge- Idea." 


THE  EPISCOPAL   THEOLOGICAL   SCHOOL. 

By  the  rev.  GEORGE  HODGES,  D.  D.,  Dean. 

The  group  of  buildings  on  Brattle  Street,  between  the  Wash- 
ington Elm  and  Craigie  House,  reminds  many  visitors  of  the 
beauties  and  delights  of  Oxford,  or  of  that  other  Cambridge 
from  which  this  takes  its  name.  The  green  quadrangle,  with 
the  chapel  and  the  refectory  on  one  side,  the  library  at  the  end, 
and  Lawrence  Hall  on  the  other  side,  and  with  the  great  tree 
in  the  midst,  about  which  Mr.  Longfellow  wrote  a  sonnet,  has  all 
the  academic  quiet  and  scholarly  seclusion  of  those  fair  gardens 
of  the  elder  universities  which  are  set  beside  the  Isis  and  the 
Cam.  There  is  this  difPerence,  however,  that  while  the  old 
quadrangles  are  quite  shut  in,  so  that  the  passer-by  gets  but  a 
glimpse  of  them  through  the  wicket  of  a  gate,  this  is  fairly 
and  generously  open  to  the  street,  in  symbol,  as  Bishop  Law- 
rence used  to  say  when  he  was  dean,  of  the  teaching  of  the 
school. 

The  year  1867,  in  which  the  school  was  founded,  was  notable 
in  the  annals  of  the  Episcopal  Church  as  that  in  which  a  decla- 
ration condemnatory  of  ritualism  was  put  forth  by  twenty-four 
bishops.  It  was  a  declaration  of  independence.  It  maintained 
that  "  no  Prayer  Book  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  reign 
of  whatever  sovereign  set  forth,  and  no  law  of  the  Church  of 
England  have  any  force  of  law  in  this  church  such  as  can  be 
justly  cited  in  defense  of  any  departure  from  the  express  law 
of  this  church."  In  this  year,  while  ritualism  and  sacerdotal- 
ism were  engaging  the  anxious  attention  of  good  people  in 
the  Episcopal  Church,  Mr.  Benjamin  Tyler  Eeed,  of  Boston, 
"  desirous  of  founding  at  Cambridge  within  the  State  and  Dio- 
cese of  Massachusetts,  a  Theological  School  for  the  purpose  of 
educating  young  men  of  competent  talents,  pure  morals,  and 
piety  for  the  Christian  Ministry,  in  accordance  with  the  doc- 
trines, principles,  and  polity  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 


WHAT  PHILLIPS  BROOKS  SAID.  255 

in  the  United  States  of  America,"  appropriated  to  that  end  the 
sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  phrases  of  the  formal 
statement  are  not  to  be  read  merely  in  their  conventional  sense. 
Every  word  was  weighed.  The  school  was  to  be  American  and 
not  English,  and  was  to  uphold  the  great  truths  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. It  was  the  purpose  of  the  founder  that  the  teachings 
of  the  school  "  shall  at  all  times  embody  and  distinctly  set  forth 
the  great  doctrine  of  justification  by  Faith  alone  in  the  Atone- 
ment and  Righteousness  of  Christ,  as  taught  in  the  '  Articles  of 
Religion,'  commonly  called  the  thirty-nine  articles,  according 
to  the  natural  construction  of  the  said  articles  (Scripture  alone 
being  the  standard)  as  adopted  at  the  Reformation,  and  not 
according  to  any  tradition,  doctrine,  or  usage  prior  to  said 
Reformation,  not  contained  in  Scripture." 

The  school  was,  therefore,  set  to  train  men  for  the  ministry 
of  the  Episcopal  Church  who  should  be  learned  in  the  Scrip- 
ures  and  in  sympathy  with  American  institutions,  and  against 
all  attempts  at  ritualism  and  sacerdotalism.  The  institution 
was  established  at  Cambridge  on  account  of  the  advantages  to 
be  had  from  the  near  neighborhood  of  Harvard  College. 

In  order  to  secure  the  perpetual  maintenance  of  Mr.  Reed's 
good  purposes,  and  to  remove  the  future  of  the  school  from  the 
changing  fortunes  of  church  parties,  a  board  of  lay  trustees 
was  chosen,  made  up  of  men  in  sympathy  with  these  purposes 
and  having  power  to  fill  vacancies  in  their  number.  This  wise 
provision  has  been  approved  by  the  experience  of  nearly  thirty 
years.  The  school  is  doing  to-day  the  work  for  which  it  was 
planned  ;  so  that  Bishop  Brooks  said  of  it :  "  We  may  well  be 
specially  and  profoundly  thankful  that  we  have  in  our  great 
seminary  at  Cambridge  a  home  and  nursery  of  faith  and  learn- 
ing which  no  school  in  our  Church  has  ever  surpassed.  Full  of 
deep  sympathy  with  present  thought ;  quick  with  the  spirit  of 
inquiry ;  eager  to  train  its  men  to  think  and  reason  ;  equipped 
with  teaching  power  of  the  highest  order  ;  believing  in  the  ever- 
increasing  manifestation  of  the  truth  of  God  ;  anxious  to  blend 
the  most  earnest  piety  with  the  most  active  intelligence  ;  and 
so  to  cultivate  a  deep,  enthusiastic,  reasonable  faith ;  the  Cam- 
bridge school  stands  very  high  among  the  powers  which  bid  us 
hope  great  things  for  the  work  which  the  servants  of  Christ 
will  do  for  his  glory  and  the  salvation  of  the  world  in  the  years 
to  come." 


256  THE  EPISCOPAL   THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL. 

St.  John's  Memorial  Chapel  was  built  in  1869,  by  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Means  Mason.  Lawrence  Hall,  completed  in  1880,  is  the 
gift  of  Mr.  Amos  Adams  Lawrence.  Reed  HaU,  containing 
the  library,  was  built  in  1875,  by  the  founder,  Mr.  Reed.  Four 
years  after,  Mr.  John  Appleton  Burnham  built  Burnham  Hall, 
the  refectory.  In  1893  Winthroj)  Hall  was  bvdlt  by  friends  of 
the  school,  and  was  named  after  the  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop, 
who  until  his  death  was  president  of  the  board  of  trustees  of 
the  school.  The  Deanery  was  given  to  the  school  by  Mrs.  Gray, 
after  the  death  of  Dean  Gray. 

The  first  dean  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  S.  Stone,  who  served 
the  school  from  1867  to  1876.  Dean  Gray  followed  him,  from 
1876  to  1889.  The  next  dean  was  Dr.  William  Lawrence,  now 
Bishop  of  Massachusetts.  He  was  succeeded,  upon  his  election 
as  bishop,  by  the  present  dean,  Dr.  George  Hodges. 

Of  the  professors.  Dr.  Allen  and  Dr.  Steenstra  have  been 
with  the  school  since  the  beginning  ;  and  Dr.  Nash,  Dr.  Kellner, 
and  Mr.  Drown  were  educated  at  the  school.  Dr.  Wharton  and 
Dr.  Mulford,  past  professors,  are  remembered  by  writings 
which  still  live.  The  graduates  of  the  school,  numbering  about 
two  hundred,  are  at  work  in  more  than  thirty  dioceses.  The 
average  number  of  men  in  the  school  is  about  fifty. 


THE  NEW-CHURCH   THEOLOGICAL   SCHOOL. 

By  rev.  THEODORE  F.  WRIGHT,  Ph.  D. 

This  inftitution  was  first  suggested  at  the  convention  of  the 
New-Jerusalem  Church  in  1866.  Up  to  that  time  the  ministry 
had  been  supplied  almost  wholly  by  accessions  from  other  reli- 
gious bodies,  but  it  was  then  found  that  young  men  were  grow- 
ing up  with  a  desire  to  be  thoroughly  prepared  in  a  distinctive 
school.  Beginning  with  a  summer  class,  and  going  on  very 
modestly  without  a  place  of  its  own  until  1889,  the  school 
then  took  its  present  position.  The  commodious  residence  of 
the  late  President  Sparks  was  first  purchased,  and  to  this  the 
Greenough  estate  was  added  two  years  later.  The  grounds 
thus  extend  along  Quincy  Street  from  Cambridge  to  Kirkland 
streets,  and  room  is  afforded  for  new  buildings. 

The  first  of  these  will  undoubtedly  be  a  chapel.  Services 
have  been  held  in  the  lower  rooms  of  the  Sparks  house,  and  the 
congregation  is,  for  its  size,  an  active  one,  assisting  in  all  work 
for  the  moral  welfare  of  Cambridge.  A  good  beginning  has 
been  made  towards  the  creation  of  a  chapel  fund. 

At  the  time  of  removal  to  Cambridge  some  regret  was  kindly 
expressed  because  a  separate  system  of  instruction  had  been 
adopted  instead  of  the  endowment  of  a  chair  in  the  Harvard 
Divinity  School;  but  the  principles  of  the  New-Jerusalem 
Church  are  such  that  a  separate  school  seems  to  be  a  practical 
necessity.  Thus  the  sacred  Scriptures  are  held  to  be  fully 
divine,  although  outwardly  adapted  to  people  of  the  past. 
Again  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  world  —  a  doctrine  held  in 
connection  with  utter  abhorrence  of  spiritism  —  is  a  funda- 
mental tenet.  Neither  the  Unitarian  nor  the  Trinitarian  view 
of  the  Divine  Being  is  held ;  but  He  is  believed  to  be  of  one 
person,  with  the  attributes  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  united  in 
Him  as  are  the  soul,  the  body,  and  the  outgoing  life  in  man. 
The  title  "  New-Jerusalem  "  is  not  used  in  an  exclusive  sense, 


258        THE  NEW-CHURCH  THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL. 

but  as  descriptive  of  Christianity  freed  from  the  material  con- 
ceptions of  the  past.  Emanuel  Swedenborg  is  regarded  as  a 
divinely  authorized  interpreter  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  rational 
mind  of  this  age.  This  interpretation  he  everywhere  rests  on 
the  basis  of  science,  which,  in  its  essential  form,  he  understood 
before  he  advanced  to  philosophy. 

The  curriculum  of  the  school  is  arranged  for  three  years ; 
the  Scriptures  in  the  original  tongues  are  studied  through  the 
course;  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  Scripture,  the  history 
of  religion,  the  New-Church  theology,  and  the  work  of  the 
ministry  are  the  principal  subjects  of  study. 

There  are,  as  yet,  no  endowed  professorships,  but  the  teaching 
is  done  by  persons  selected  from  time  to  time,  for  their  general 
fitness.  The  management  is  in  the  hands  of  a  board  appointed 
b}"^  the  general  convention  in  the  United  States.  The  president 
is  the  Rev.  James  Reed  of  Boston  (H.  U.  1855) ;  the  writer 
(H.  U.  1866)  is  in  immediate  charge,  and  resides  upon  the 
Greenough  estate. 

Students  in  residence  generally  live  in  the  Sparks  house, 
which  has  also  two  lecture-rooms.  Beside  the  students  in  Cam- 
bridge, there  are  some  who  follow  the  course  in  their  distant 
homes,  especially  as  a  test  of  their  fitness  to*  become  regular 
students. 

The  school  gives  its  diploma  to  full  graduates ;  other  stu- 
dents receive  a  certificate  of  work  performed. 

The  funds  of  the  school,  like  all  else  in  connection  with  it, 
are  merely  sufficient  for  present  needs  ;  but,  as  the  chairman  of 
the  trustees.  Chief  Justice  Mason,  lately  said,  "  Our  school  is 
not  rich,  and  it  is  not  poor." 

At  the  time  when  the  Cambridge  location  was  decided  upon, 
such  generosity  as  the  university  has  shown  was  not  expected  ; 
but  the  original  good  reasons  for  the  step  have  been  augmented 
by  the  general  kindness  which  has  been  shown  to  the  school  by 
all  with  whom  it  comes  into  contact. 


THE  ASSOCIATED  CHARITIES  OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  WILLIAM  TAGGARD  PIPER. 

The  Associated  Charities  of  Cambridge  owes  its  beginning 
to  Dr.  Charles  E.  Vaughan,  who,  being  an  overseer  of  the  poor, 
and  also  interested  in  other  benevolent  work,  saw  the  need  and 
the  opportunity  for  an  organization  which  should  investigate 
applications  for  relief,  record  the  results  of  such  investigation, 
furuish  the  information  thus  obtained  to  those  who  were  en- 
gaged in  relief  work,  and  should  also  endeavor  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  unfortunate  through  the  suggestions  and  advice 
of  volunteer  visitors. 

To  carry  out  all  these  objects  is  the  aim  of  the  Associated 
Charities,  and  to  form  such  a  society  Dr.  Vaughan  arranged  for 
a  meeting  in  the  spring  of  1881.  At  a  meeting  held  later  a 
committee  was  formed  of  which  Mr.  J.  B.  Warner  was  chair- 
man ;  Dr.  Ephraim  Emerton,  secretary ;  Mr.  Henry  N.  Tilton, 
treasurer ;  and  the  members  came  from  all  parts  of  Cambridge. 
A  somewhat  more  formal  organization  was  made  in  December 
of  that  year.  Miss  S.  A.  Pear  was  appointed  registrar  to  record 
and  furnish  to  those  interested  the  facts  learned  through  inves- 
tigation, and  an  office  was  provided  by  the  city  in  the  Central 
Square  building  in  Cambridgeport. 

As  a  necessary  complement  to  the  registration,  the  work  of 
visiting  those  in  distress  was  begun  in  the  spring  of  1882,  and, 
to  enable  the  visitors  to  compare  their  experience  and  to  get  the 
advantage  of  mutual  advice,  a  conference  was  formed  in  Old 
Camoridge  in  April,  another  in  Cambridgeport  in  May,  and 
one  in  North  Cambridge  in  May,  1884.  These  have  met  regu- 
larly twice  each  month  since  their  organization  (except  during 
the  summer),  and  have  done  some  remarkably  good  work.  A 
similar  conference  was  formed  in  East  Cambridge  in  the  spring 
of  1894,  so  that  the  whole  city  is  now  included  in  the  system 
of  friendly  visiting,  so  far  as  the  comparatively  small  number  of 
visitors  will  permit. 


2G0      THE  ASSOCIATED  CHARITIES   OF  CAMBRIDGE. 

The  society  was  incorporated  January  16,  1883,  and  the  late 
Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody  was  chosen  president.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Mr.  J.  B.  Warner  in  October,  1884,  and  by  Rev.  E.  H. 
Hall  in  1891 ;  after  Mr.  Hall's  resignation,  Rev.  Dr.  Edward 
Abbott  was  elected  president,  and  now  holds  the  office.  Mr. 
William  Taggard  Piper  succeeded  Dr.  Emerton  as  secretary 
in  March,  1882,  and  he  was  followed  in  1889  by  Mr.  Arthur 
E.  Jones,  the  present  secretary. 

Dr.  Vaughan  performed  invaluable  service  as  director  until 
his  departure  for  California,  in  1895 ;  and  Mr.  John  Graham 
Brooks  has  made  his  special  knowledge  in  the  field  of  organized 
charity  and  social  questions  of  great  advantage  in  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  work  now  being  effected. 

In  March,  1883,  Mr.  J.  Watson  Harris  was  appointed  paid 
agent  of  the  society  with  especial  reference  to  the  needs  of  the 
Cambridgeport  conference;  after  more  than  twelve  years  of 
faithful  service  in  this  capacity,  he  resigned  in  November,  1895. 
Miss  Pear's  conscientious  and  valuable  labors  continued  until 
her  resignation  was  accepted  in  February,  1895.  In  the  fol- 
lowing month  Mr.  Francis  S.  Child  was  installed  as  general 
secretary,  in  charge  of  the  central  office,  where  he  has  worked 
with  the  utmost  devotion  for  the  past  year,  resigning  at  its 
close.  Miss  Mary  L.  Birtwell,  who  has  been  registrar  for  the 
last  six  months,  succeeds  him.  Last  July  the  central  office 
was  removed  to  671  Massachusetts  Avenue. 

In  order  to  furnish  employment  to  many  men  who  were  out 
of  work  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  a  wood-yard  was  estab- 
lished on  Broadway,  corner  of  Brewery  Street,  and  was  carried 
on  under  the  supervision  of  a  committee  of  three  directors  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1893-94.  Since  those  who  were  citizens  coidd 
be  employed  by  the  city,  men  who  had  not  been  naturalized  were 
almost  the  only  ones  who  worked  here.  The  employment  pro- 
vided enabled  them  to  earn  something  for  themselves  and  their 
families,  and  prevented  their  receiving  alms.  This  enterprise 
was  conducted  in  cooperation  with  the  Citizens'  Relief  Com- 
mittee and  the  Overseers  of  the  Poor,  and  though,  as  was  ex- 
pected, it  did  not  succeed  financially,  it  accomplished  its  pur- 
pose industrially.  It  was  decided  to  provide,  during  the  winter 
of  1895-96,  a  work  test  in  order  to  discriminate  among  those 
who  said  that  they  were  looking  for  work,  and  an  opportunity 
for  unskilled   labor  was  furnished  at    the  City  Sewer  Yard. 


IMPOSTORS  CIRCUMVENTED.  261 

About  one  half  of  those  sent  to  the  yard  have  done  the  stint 
marked  out,  and  have  received  in  payment  a  substantial  meal. 

In  order  that  persons  who  ask  for  food  and  lodging  in  the 
evening  might  be  referred  to  some  place  where  they  could  be 
cared  for  if  in  real  need,  the  central  office  has  been  open  during 
the  winter  from  eight  to  nine  p.  m. 

The  Associated  Charities  will  reach  its  highest  efficiency  only 
when  all  benevolent  individuals  and  organizations  co<3perate 
fully  with  it,  by  reporting  regularly  all  applications  for  reKef ,  all 
that  is  known  about  the  condition  and  history  of  the  applicants, 
and  the  relief  given  or  the  decision  reached  in  each  case.  Then 
can  the  Associated  Charities  of  Cambridge  fulfill  the  promise 
that  every  applicant  for  assistance  of  any  kind,  whose  case  is 
referred  to  it,  will,  if  his  need  be  genuine,  receive  relief  from  a 
single  individual  or  society  in  the  form  and  amount  best  suited 
to  his  circumstances  and  requirements ;  that  there  will  be  no 
duplication  of  relief ;  and  that  impostors  will  be  prevented  from 
living  on  misplaced  charity.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
Associated  Charities  itself  does  not  give  alms,  except  in  the 
most  urgent  distress,  but  aims  to  discriminate  among  the  appli- 
cants, and  to  see  that  relief  is  furnished  to  those  in  real  need  so 
far  as  the  resources  of  the  societies  and  individuals  working  in 
harmony  with  it  will  allow. 

From  the  first  the  cooperation  requested  has  been  given  by 
the  Overseers  of  the  Poor,  and  to  a  smaller  extent  by  some  of 
the  churches  and  benevolent  organizations.  The  more  extensive 
and  complete  this  is,  the  more  satisfactory  will  be  the  work  that 
the  Associated  Charities  can  accomplish ;  and  under  the  skillful, 
trained  direction  of  the  general  secretary,  it  is  confidently  ex- 
pected that  the  cooperation,  which  has  been  steadily  growing 
the  past  year,  will  continue  to  increase. 

Up  to  March,  1895,  the  expenses  averaged  a  little  over 
f  1100  a  year,  principally  for  the  salaries  of  the  registrar  and 
paid  agent.  Since  then  the  increase  in  the  amount  of  work 
and  the  employment  of  more  experienced  officials  has  increased 
the  expenditure  for  salaries,  while  the  cost  of  rent,  printing, 
and  postage  is  much  larger,  so  that  it  is  estimated  that  from 
83000  to  14000  annually  will  be  required  to  carry  on  the  work 
satisfactorily. 


THE   AVON   HOME. 

By  WILLIAM  TAGGARD  PIPER. 

The  Avon  Home  "  for  children  found  destitute  within  the 
limits  of  Cambridge  "  was  founded  by  the  generosity  of  a  resi- 
dent of  Cambridge  in  accordance  with  a  long-cherished  plan. 
It  was  opened  on  May  30, 1874,  in  a  house  on  Avon  Place  near 
Linnsean  Street,  which,  with  its  furniture  and  what  was  expected 
to  be  an  ample  endowment,  was  transferred  to  the  corporation 
of  the  Avon  Place  trustees  in  November  of  that  year. 

The  original  board  of  trustees  consisted  of  Mrs.  Henry  W. 
Paine,  president;  Rev.  D.  O.  Mears,  treasurer;  Miss  Irene 
F.  Sanger,  clerk ;  and  Dr.  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  Mrs.  Joseph 
Lovering,  Mrs.  W.  T.  Richardson,  Mrs.  Henry  Thayer,  Mrs. 
J.  M.  Tyler,  and  Mrs.  B.  F.  Wyeth.  Dr.  Peabody  succeeded 
Mrs.  Paine  as  president,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1893 
was  the  last  one  of  the  original  trustees  ;  Mr.  William  Taggard 
Piper  was  chosen  to  succeed  Dr.  Peabody.  Mrs.  John  Bartlett 
and  Miss  Maria  Murdock  respectively  followed  Miss  Sanger  as 
clerk,  and  Mrs.  J.  M.  Tyler  and  Miss  Mary  A.  Ellis  succeeded 
Mr.  Mears  as  treasurer.  Four  trustees  were  added  in  Novem- 
ber, 1875,  and  in  January,  1886,  the  number  was  increased  to 
seventeen.  In  1891  the  name  of  the  corporation  was  changed 
to  "  The  Avon  Home." 

The  endowment  was  in  the  form  of  securities,  which  unfortu- 
nately proved  to  be  of  little  or  no  value,  and  soon  after  the  open- 
ing of  the  Home  the  trustees  were  compelled  to  call  on  their 
friends  for  contributions  to  enable  them  to  carry  on  this  work 
which  was  so  pressing.  Their  appeal  was  answered,  and  it  is 
worthy  of  record  that  during  the  whole  period  of  the  existence 
of  the  Home  no  debt  has  ever  been  incurred.  In  1878  an  ad- 
joining lot  on  Avon  Hill  Street  was  given  by  the  Holly  Tree  Inn, 
and  in  the  following  year  the  house  was  enlarged  so  that  from 
twenty-five  to  thirty  children  could  be  accommodated.     In  1879 


A  FARM  IN  CONCORD.  263 

a  gift  of  $300  from  the  Cambridge  Horticultural  Society  was 
received,  of  which  only  the  income  could  be  spent,  and  this 
formed  the  beginning  of  a  permanent  fund,  which  has  since 
been  increased  by  legacies  and  gifts. 

Since  it  was  impossible  even  to  consider  more  than  two  thirds 
of  the  applications  for  admission,  owing  to  the  insufficient  accom- 
modations, the  trustees,  in  the  autumn  of  1889,  asked  for  sub- 
scriptions with  which  to  build  a  larger  and  more  convenient 
house  on  Avon  Hill  Street.  Nearly  the  desired  amount  had  been 
subscribed  when  some  of  the  friends  of  the  Home,  thinking  that 
a  better  situation  should  be  provided,  urged  that  an  appeal  for 
that  purpose  should  be  issued.  The  residt  of  this  was  so  satis- 
factory that  land  was  purchased  on  Mount  Auburn  Street,  nearly 
opposite  the  Cambridge  Hospital,  and  a  handsome,  commodious 
building  was  erected  large  enough  to  accommodate  forty  chil- 
dren comfortably.  This  was  completed  and  occupied  in  De- 
cember, 1891,  and  by  the  sale  of  the  estate  on  Avon  Place  in 
the  following  summer  the  trustees  avoided  the  possibility  of 
any  indebtedness.  The  land,  nearly  70,000  square  feet,  cost 
$13,952.75,  and  the  house  $21,740.78  ;  a  fire-escape  was  after- 
wards added,  making  the  total  cost  $36,239.51. 

In  1892  the  founder  of  the  Home  showed  his  continued  inter- 
est in  its  prosperity  by  the  gift  of  a  farm  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  acres  in  Concord,  Mass.,  which  it  is  his  desire,  as  it  is  the 
wish  of  the  trustees,  to  use  for  the  older  boys,  where  they  may 
learn  farming  and  other  outdoor  occupations,  or  for  the  more 
delicate  little  children,  where  they  may  get  a  change  of  air. 
At  present  this  cannot  be  done  on  account  of  the  great  addi- 
tional expense,  and  the  farm  is  rented. 

The  cost  of  maintenance  is  now  over  $5000  a  year ;  the 
greater  part  of  this  is  met  by  the  income  from  the  invested 
funds,  by  the  proceeds  of  fairs,  and  by  the  small  amount  of 
board  which  is  required  from  those  parents  who  are  able  to  pay 
anything.  From  annual  subscriptions  and  donations  is  received 
less  than  $2000,  —  not  a  large  amount  to  be  contributed  by  the 
citizens  of  Cambridge  for  the  support  of  the  only  Home  exclu- 
sively for  Cambridge  children,  where  no  distinction  is  made 
as  to  race  or  religion.  The  children  attend  the  public  schools 
and  public  kindergarten,  go  to  church  regularly,  and  since  the 
number  is  limited  to  foi-ty,  they  are  treated  in  every  way  as  the 
members  of  a  large  family. 


264  THE  A  VON  HOME. 

In  this  attempt  the  trustees  have  been  ably  seconded  by  the 
remarkable  ability  of  Mrs.  Melick,  who  has  been  the  matron 
since  May,  1886,  and  to  her  much  of  the  credit  for  the  success- 
ful management  of  the  Home  is  due.  For  many  years  the  ladies 
who  have  served  as  trustees  have  given  invaluable  assistance  by 
their  unwearied  interest  and  careful  attention  to  all  the  numer- 
ous details  of  the  institution. 

Three  hundred  children  have  been  cared  for  at  the  Avon 
Home  in  the  last  twenty-two  years ;  their  stay  has  been  for 
different  periods,  varying  from  a  few  days  to  eight  years. 
Some  have  been  foundlings  or  orphans,  for  whom  after  a  time 
homes  have  been  provided  where  they  might  be  adopted  and 
brought  up  as  if  belonging  to  the  family ;  others  have  been 
surrendered  to  the  trustees  and  similarly  placed.  By  far  the 
largest  number  have  been  cared  for  temporarily  during  some 
crisis  in  the  family,  and  when  this  had  passed  the  parents  or 
relatives  were  able  to  care  for  them. 

The  children  who  have  stayed  at  the  Home  long  enough  to 
receive  much  benefit  from  its  influence  have  all,  so  far  as 
known,  turned  out  well ;  one  is  in  California,  others  nearer 
Cambridge,  but  most  of  them  are  still  in  the  city  or  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood,  and  all  are  proving  respectable  citizens. 


THE   PROSPECT   UNION. 

By  rev.  ROBERT  E.  ELY,  President. 

The  object  of  the  Prospect  Union  is  to  bring  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  advantages  of  Harvard  University  within  the 
reach  of  workingmen  through  evening  classes  taught  by  Har- 
vard students,  and  through  lectures  by  members  of  the  Harvard 
Faculty  and  other  persons.  There  is  in  Cambridge,  particu- 
larly in  Cambridgeport,  a  large  population  of  wage-earners.  In 
Cambridge  reside  also  a  large  number  of  Harvard  students. 
Students  were  formerly  often  regarded  with  unfriendliness  by 
workingmen,  and  the  life  of  the  average  wage-earner  was  quite 
outside  the  knowledge  of  the  average  Harvard  student.  The 
Prospect  Union  has  attempted  to  bring  students  and  wage- 
earners  into  friendly  relations,  and  to  get  them  to  understand 
and  to  help  each  other.  The  Union  was  named  from  the  Pros- 
pect House  Building  on  Massachusetts  Avenue  near  Central 
Square.  In  this  building  the  Union  began  its  work  in  January, 
1891,  under  the  leadership  of  Rev.  Robert  E.  Ely  and  Pro- 
fessor Francis  G.  Peabody,  of  Harvard.  Its  beginning  was  so 
small  as  to  be  insignificant,  but  the  little  group  of  working- 
men  and  Harvard  students  increased  rapidly,  and  there  has  been 
a  constant  and  encouraging  growth  ever  since.  Finally  the 
Prospect  House  no  longer  afforded  adequate  room,  and  a  change 
of  location  was  necessary.  The  old  city  hall  was  taken  at  a 
nominal  rental  in  the  fall  of  1894,  and  a  year  later  became  the 
property  of  the  Union.  This  building  is  well  adapted  to  the 
work  now  carried  on  there,  and  has  been  renovated  recently. 
In  it  reside  the  president  of  the  Union  and  four  of  his  co-labor- 
ers. The  Prospect  Union,  therefore,  is  not  merely  a  working- 
men's  college,  but  is  also  something  like  a  "  college  settlement." 

Classes  are  held  every  evening  of  the  week  except  Wednes- 
day, in  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  ranging  from  the  most  ele- 
mentary instruction  in  the  English   branches   to  foreign  Ian- 


266  THE  PROSPECT  UNION. 

guages,  ancient  and  modern,  history,  political  economy,  the 
natural  sciences,  the  higher  mathematics,  drawing,  and  such 
studies  as  book-keeping  and  shorthand.  There  are  also  classes 
in  music,  vocal  and  instrumental.  The  teachers  of  the  classes 
are  with  one  or  two  exceptions  Harvard  students,  who  receive 
no  pay  in  money  for  their  services.  At  present  there  are  nearly 
one  hundred  of  these  student-teachers,  and  their  devotion  to 
their  classes  is  marked.  So  great  is  the  interest  in  the  Pros- 
pect Union  on  the  part  of  the  university  that  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  finding  a  plenty  of  college  men  to  lend  their  aid,  and 
these  students  are  among  the  men  of  highest  rank  in  scholar- 
ship and  of  prominence  in  other  respects  in  the  university. 

The  weekly  meeting  of  the  Union  is  held  on  Wednesday 
evening.  At  this  time  there  is  usually  a  lecture,  often  by  some 
member  of  the  Harvard  Faculty.  Lectures  have  been  delivered 
by  President  Eliot,  Professors  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  Francis 
G.  Peabody,  W.  W.  Goodwin,  F.  W.  Taussig,  A.  B.  Hart, 
G.  H.  Palmer,  and  many  other  members  of  the  Harvard 
Faculty ;  also  by  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  Rt. 
Rev.  William  Lawrence,  Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  Rt.  Rev. 
J.  H.  Vincent,  Mr.  John  Fiske,  Dean  George  Hodges,  Mrs. 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  Mrs.  Lucy  Stone,  Mrs.  Alice  Freeman 
Palmer,  Miss  Vida  D.  Scudder,  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  Rev. 
Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  etc.,  etc.  The  lecturers,  like  the 
teachers,  receive  no  pay  for  their  services  in  money. 

The  Prospect  Union  is  not  a  charitable  institution.  Its 
members,  who  number  over  six  hundred,  pay  a  regular  fee  of 
three  dollars  a  year  or  twenty-five  cents  a  month.  They  are 
workingmen  of  almost  every  nationality,  and  of  every  shade  of 
political  and  religious  belief.  The  Union  rests  upon  an  abso- 
lutely non-sectarian  basis ;  Catholic  and  Protestant,  Jew  and 
Gentile,  meet  upon  a  footing  of  manliness  and  friendliness. 

The  Union  is  characterized  by  a  spirit  of  independence  and 
yet  of  kindly  feeling  of  men  who  differ  widely  from  one  an- 
other. There  is  no  element  of  patronage  or  condescension  on 
the  part  of  the  Harvard  students,  but  they  meet  the  members 
of  their  classes  on  the  basis  of  a  common  manhood.  Members 
have  not  only  the  privileges  of  the  classes  and  the  lectures,  but 
also  of  the  reading-room,  library,  social-room,  bath-room,  sum- 
mer outings,  and  various  concerts  and  entertainments. 


AN  OLD-TIME  SOCIETY, 

By  ARTHUR  GILMAN. 

The  Cambridge  Humane  Society  is  one  of  the  most  venera- 
ble institutions  that  our  city  can  boast.  It  held  its  eighty- 
first  annual  meeting  in  November,  1895,  having  been  founded 
in  1814,  apparently  by  Dr.  Abiel  Holmes,  whose  name  leads 
the  list  of  subscribers  in  the  book  of  records  which  has  served 
all  the  secretaries  from  that  day  to  the  present.  In  the  middle 
of  the  "  heated  term,"  as  the  degenerate  sons  of  the  present 
time  speak  of  the  season,  the  fathers  began  their  beneficent 
labors  with  an  "  address "  to  their  fellow-townsmen,  dated 
August  11.  This  address  was  the  consummation  of  efforts 
begun  in  February,  when  a  meeting  had  been  held  at  Por- 
ter's Tavern.  "  Caleb  Gannett,  Esq.,  being  chosen  chairman, 
it  was  voted  that  the  subscribers  do  form  a  society  to  be 
known  hereafter  as  The  Cambridge  Humane  Society."  The 
next  meeting  was  held  at  the  same  hospitable  place,  July  18, 
Dr.  Abiel  Holmes  being  chairman,  and  a  committee,  composed 
of  "  Samuel  Bartlett,  Esq.,  &  Doct.  Tho's  Foster,"  which  had 
been  appointed  in  February,  "reported  the  following  list  of 
articles  that  they  had  procured,  which  were  then  exhibited  to 
the  Society,  viz. :  —  3  Bathing  Tubs,  2  Block  tin  bed-pans,  2 
Block  tin  pint  syringes,  1  Block  tin  half-pint  syringe,  3  urinals, 
and  1  bed-chair."  It  was  determined  that  these  articles  should 
be  deposited  in  the  hands  of  a  suitable  person  resident  near  the 
centre  of  the  town,i  who  should  engage  to  keep  them  safely, 
and  to  deliver  them  to  applicants  under  such  conditions  as  the 
society  might  adopt.  Inhabitants  of  other  towns  were  not  to 
use  the  articles,  "  unless  they  were  too  remotely  situated  to 
avail  themselves  of  similar  advantages  in  their  own  towns," 
from  which  we  are  to  infer  that  bath-tubs,  etc.,  were  known 

^  The  town  at  that  time  was  but  a  small  portion  of  the  present  Ward 
One.     Probably  there  were  seven  hundred  inhabitants. 


268  AN  OLD-TIME  SOCIETY. 

elsewhere  in  the  vicinity.  Every  borrower  was  under  bonds 
to  return  the  articles  "  clean  and  dry,"  and  in  case  of  competi- 
tion among  applicants,  it  was  ruled  that  the  preference  should 
be  given  to  indigent  persons ;  but  whoever  should  be  the  suc- 
cessful competitor,  he  was  to  be  fined  ten  cents  for  every  day 
that  he  retained  the  articles  beyond  the  time  allowed,  which,  in 
the  case  of  "  the  tubs,"  was  one  week. 

The  fii'st  election  of  officers  was  held  at  Porter's  Tavern  on 
the  24th  of  August,  1814,  when  the  following  were  chosen: 
president.  Rev.  Abiel  Holmes,  D.  D. ;  vice-president.  Rev. 
Henry  Ware,  D.  D. ;  secretary,  Levi  Farwell ;  treasurer,  Levi 
Hedge,  Esq. ;  trustees,  Samuel  Bartlett,  Esq.,  A.  Bigelow, 
Esq.,  Dr.  T.  Foster,  William  Hilliard,  and  Israel  Porter.  It 
was  when  the  society  had  been  thus  fully  equipped  with  a 
board  of  officers  that  the  address  was  issued  to  the  inhabitants. 
It  has  a  somewhat  modern  air,  in  spite  of  its  more  than  modern 
dignity  of  expression.     Let  us  read :  — 

"  All  are  ready  to  acknowledge,"  they  say,  "  the  great  obligations 
we  are  under  as  men,  and  especially  as  Christians,  to  supply  the  wants 
and  relieve  the  sufEerings  of  our  brethren  ;  and  so  numerous  are  the 
evils  incident  to  humanity,  and  so  frequent  the  causes  by  which  their 
number  is  increased  and  their  pressure  aggravated,  that  the  most  lib- 
eral and  diffusive  benevolence  can  never  want  objects  to  engage  its 
attention.  It  must  be  allowed  that  active  philanthropy  forms  a  promi- 
nent trait  in  the  character  of  the  present  day.  At  no  former  period 
has  there  been  such  extensive  and  effectual  provision,  both  public  and 
private,  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  infirm.  Institutions  for  the  pre- 
vention and  relief  of  suffering  in  all  its  various  forms  are  continually 
springing  up  around  us,  the  beneficial  effect  of  which  on  society  and 
great  advantages  over  the  occasional  exertions  of  individuals  are  very 
evident.  These  advantages,  however,  must  be  limited  in  great  meas- 
ure to  the  particular  town  in  which  such  institution  is  founded,  hence 
it  becomes  important  that  there  should  be  formed  in  every  town  an 
institution  for  extending  the  blessings  of  charity  to  the  necessitous. 
Although  the  liberality  of  individuals  in  this  place  has  often  been  ex- 
tended in  no  small  degree  to  persons  of  this  description,  still  it  has 
been  regretted  that  there  does  not  exist  here  an  establishment  calcu- 
lated to  ensure  to  the  necessitous  that  assistance  for  which  no  public 
provision  is  made,  and  which  the  exertions  of  individuals  cannot  al- 
ways supply.  Should  it  be  objected  that  the  multiplication  of  chari- 
table institutions  serves  to  increase  human  calamity,  by  encouraging 
idleness  and  vice,  the  objection  will  be  obviated  if  due  care  be  taken 


THE  FEMALE  HUMANE  SOCIETY.  269 

in  selecting  objects  and  concerting  plans  of  charity.  With  whatever 
force  this  objection  may  be  applied  to  other  institutions,  it  is  believed 
to  be  inapplicable  to  one  intended  for  the  relief  of  such  persons  as  can- 
not possibly  relieve  themselves.  Of  this  class  of  sufferers  are  the 
indigent  sick,  whose  claims  to  charity  are  of  all  the  most  urgent,  and 
yet  least  of  all  admit  either  deception  or  abuse.  With  these  views 
and  impressions,  a  number  of  persons  have  associated  themselves  for 
the  relief  of  the  indigent  sick  by  the  name  of  The  Cambridge  Humane 
Society.  As  the  first  step  towards  an  object  so  desirable,  they  have 
raised  by  subscription  a  sufficient  sum  to  procure  a  few  of  the  most 
requisite  articles  ;  and  have  presented  an  address  to  the  Ladies  in 
Cambridge,  requesting  their  assistance  in  procuring  for  the  sick  such 
additional  articles  and  such  further  accommodations  as  come  within 
their  peculiar  province.^  In  that  address  they  have  expressed  more 
particularly  what  they  apprehend  to  be  the  advantages  of  an  associa- 
tion for  charitable  purposes  which  it  were  superfluous  here  to  repeat, 
but  to  which  they  respectfully  solicit  the  attention  of  the  inhabitants 
in  general.  They  indulge  the  hope  that  by  the  cooperation  and  liber- 
ality of  their  fellow  townsmen  the  institution  may  be  so  matured  as  to 
embrace  such  further  improvements  as  experience  may  suggest." 

Besides  the  names  already  mentioned,  we  find  among  the 
early  members,  as  we  run  down  the  list  for  the  first  thirty 
years :  J.  Mellen,  Esq.,  A.  Craigie,  Esq.,  James  Munroe, 
Sidney  Willard,  William  Hilliard,  Esq.,  Thomas  Lee,  Esq., 
Samuel  Child,  Jr.,  Charles  Folsom,  Esq.,  Hon.  Joseph  Story, 
Stephen  Higginson,  Esq.,  Dr.  F.  J.  Higginson,  Eev.  Thomas 
W.  Coit,  Jonas  Wyeth,  Jr.,  John  G.  Palfrey,  William  Newell, 
Nehemiah  Adams,  R.  H.  Dana,  Ebenezer  Francis,  Jr.,  Andrews 
Norton,  Alexander  H.  Ramsay,  Richard  M.  Hodges,  William 
Saunders,  J.  B.  Dana,  C.  C.  Little,  Simon  Greenleaf,  J.  E. 
Worcester,  John  A.  Albro,  C.  C.  Felton,  Charles  Beck,  Mor- 
rill Wyman,  James  Walker,  E.  S.  Dixwell,  Converse  Francis, 
William  T.  Richardson,  H.  W.  Longfellow,  Edward  Everett, 
Asa  Gray,  Francis  Bowen,  Joseph  Lovering,  John  Ware, 
John  Holmes,  Estes  Howe,  William  Greenough,  Robert  Carter, 
E.  N.  Horsford,  Charles  E.  Norton. 

Dr.  Holmes  remained  president  imtil  his  death  in  1837, 
when  Joseph  Story  was  put  in  his  place,  Dr.  Ware  still  re- 
maining vice-president.     Levi  Hedge  (LL.  D.)  was  treasurer 

^  Frequent  references  to  the  "  Female  Humane  Society  "  prove  that  the 
ladies,  still  most  active  in  this  work,  were  of  the  same  disposition  in  the 
early  days. — Editor. 


270  AN  OLD-TIME  SOCIETY. 

until  1831,  when,  on  account  of  ill-health  and  expected  absence 
from  town,  he  asked  to  be  relieved  from  the  cares  of  office,  and 
a  special  meeting  was  called  to  choose  his  successor.  Dea. 
William  Brown  was  the  choice  of  the  society,  and  he  held  the 
post  for  five  years,  when,  in  September,  1836,  Dr.  A.  H.  Ram- 
say was  chosen.  He  held  the  office  with  great  acceptance  for 
five  years.  He  was  again  chosen  treasurer  in  1858,  and  held 
the  office  until  1885,  when  a  special  meeting  was  again  neces- 
sary to  elect  his  successor,  on  account  of  his  death.  William 
Taggard  Piper  was  then  chosen,  and  he  is  the  present  occupant 
of  the  office.  Thus  there  have  been  but  few  treasurers  dur- 
ing the  life  of  the  society.  The  thirty-two  years  of  service  of 
Mr.  Ramsay  is  a  record  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  match  in 
Cambridge. 

The  present  officers  are :  president,  Francis  J.  Child  ;  secre- 
tary, Arthur  Oilman  ;  treasurer,  William  Taggard  Piper.  Mr. 
Gilman  has  been  secretary  for  the  past  sixteen  years.  Dr.  Mor- 
rill Wyman  has  been  a  member  of  the  society  for  fifty-five 
years ;  Dr.  Ramsay  had  been  a  member  for  fifty  years  at  the 
time  of  his  death  ;  Dr.  Palfrey  was  president  for  ten  years,  and 
there  have  been  many  other  long  terms. 

The  society  continues  its  career  of  usefulness  in  a  manner 
but  slightly  different  from  that  laid  down  by  the  founders.  It 
collects  annually  a  certain  sum,  which  is  distributed  by  its 
almoner  to  the  destitute  with  great  carefulness,  and  the  original 
principles  of  charitableness  and  thorough  investigation  of  every 
case  are  followed.  Among  societies  of  its  kind,  it  is  doubtless 
the  most  venerable  in  our  city. 

It  is  entertaining,  as  showing  the  expression  of  the  feelings 
of  beneficence  on  the  part  of  the  fathers,  in  the  village  days  of 
Cambridge,  to  look  over  the  records  of  the  society  to  mark 
on  what  subjects  the  thoughts  of  the  members  were  brought  to 
bear.  For  example,  in  1816  they  began  to  see  the  necessity 
for  more  apparatus  for  the  performance  of  its  work,  and  it  was 
voted  that  an  inquiry  should  be  made  by  the  trustees  "  concern- 
ing a  patent  bedstead  and  the  machinery  pertaining  to  it,  for 
the  purpose  of  raising  a  sick  person  from  a  bed,"  and  they  were 
prudently  authorized  to  "  procure  such  a  one  as  in  their  discre- 
tion may  comport  with  the  pecuniary  means  of  the  Society." 
In  the  same  year  steps  were  taken  to  provide,  "  at  the  expense 
of  the  town,"  a  "  suitable  boat  or  boats,  and  apparatus  belong- 


DISCUSSING  THE  BOAT.  271 

ing  thereto,  to  be  kept  and  used  for  finding,  as  soon  as  may  be, 
persons  drowned."  The  boat  continued  to  demand  a  portion 
of  the  attention  of  the  society  at  its  meetings  until  1830,  after 
which  date  —  fourteen  years  from  its  first  appearance  —  it  dis- 
appears from  the  records.  It  had  been  foimd  in  1817  that  the 
town  was  not  willing  to  pay  the  entire  cost  of  the  boat,  and  it 
was  voted  that "  William  Hilliard,  Esq.,  and  Cap'n  Sam'l  Child 
be  a  committee  to  procure  a  suitable  boat  and  appendages  to 
the  same,"  with  authority  to  "  draw  upon  the  Treasurer  for  such 
sum  as  may  be  necessary,  in  addition  to  the  sum  provided  by 
the  Selectmen."  In  August,  1818,  this  committee  reported 
that  the  object  had  been  accomplished  by  means  of  contribu- 
tions of  twenty-five  dollars  each  from  the  town  and  Harvard 
College,  and  certain  additional  sums  from  those  benevolent  per- 
sonages, "  individuals  of  the  town."  Thus,  after  two  years  of 
negotiation,  the  boat  had  been  prepared  for  its  work  of  "  find- 
ing, as  soon  as  may  be,  persons  drowned."  By  1825,  however, 
after  seven  years  of  usefulness,  as  we  must  suppose,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  "  the  boat "  needed  repairs,  and  the  trustees  were 
requested  to  put  it  in  order  "  as  soon  as  may  be,  and  to  keep 
it  in  order,  and  place  it  in  such  situation  as  shall  be  safe  and 
convenient  of  access  when  there  may  be  occasion  to  use  it  in 
the  service  of  the  Society."  A  year  later  the  trustees  made 
a  report  on  the  expediency  of  repairing  the  boat,  and  we  can 
only  guess  that  they  had  discovered  that  its  condition  had 
placed  it  beyond  the  desirability  of  repairs,  for  the  society, 
after  adjourning  for  a  month,  perhaps  in  order  that  the  mem- 
bers might  make  personal  examination  of  the  boat,  voted  to 
appropriate  fifty  dollars  for  an  entirely  new  one.  It  was  not 
so  easy,  however,  to  provide  suitable  care  for  the  boat,  and  in 
August,  1829,  a  committee  of  three  prominent  citizens  was 
appointed  to  provide  the  quarters,  which  seem  stiU  to  be  unse- 
cured. This  committee  reported  that  the  best  method  would  be 
to  contract  with  Mr.  Emery  Willard  to  care  for  the  boat.  The 
adx'ice  of  the  committee  was  adopted,  and  the  boat  seems  there- 
after to  have  been  kept  by  Mr.  Willard.  It  passes  from  the 
records  at  least,  and  was  no  longer  a  cause  for  solicitude. 

The  society  seems  to  have  been  the  original  Cambridge  board 
of  health,  and  in  1817  it  commissioned  William  Hilliard,  Esq., 
"  to  enquire  concerning,  and  to  apply  to  the  Selectmen  to  cause 
to  be  removed,  any  nuisances  which  endanger  the  health  of  the 
town." 


272  AN  OLD-TIME  SOCIETY. 

The  society  had  been  formed  to  aid  the  "  indigent  sick,"  and 
after  about  nine  years  of  experience,  in  1823,  a  feeling  arose 
that  perhaps  the  sphere  of  action  might  be  widened,  and  accord- 
ingly a  committee  was  appointed  to  "  enquire  whether  any  por- 
tion of  the  Society's  funds  may  be  appropriated  to  the  use  of 
other  persons  besides  the  indigent  sick."  This  committee  made 
a  formal  report  on  this,  which  seemed  to  be  a  constitutional 
question,  in  the  course  of  which  it  said  :  — 

"That  upon  the  organization  of  the  Society,  it  was  considered  a 
primary  object  to  obtain  such  articles,  by  way  of  permanent  appara- 
tus, as  are  wanted  in  cases  of  sickness,  and  which  with  difficulty  are 
procured  from  other  sources.  To  the  accomplishment  of  this  object, 
liberal  subscriptions  were  then  made.  In  addition  to  this,  the  annual 
assessment  of  one  dollar  upon  each  member  of  the  Society  has  enabled 
it,  from  year  to  year,  to  make  appropriations  for  the  partial  relief  of 
such  cases  of  poverty,  accompanied  with  sickness,  as  have  come  within 
the  knowledge  of  the  Trustees.  Your  Committee  would  further  report, 
that  although  it  was  considered  a  prudent  measure  in  the  infant  state 
of  the  Society,  to  limit  its  appropriations  for  relief  exclusively  to  the 
objects  contemplated  in  the  Preamble  to  the  Constitution  of  the  So- 
ciety, to  wit,  '  the  indigent  sick ; '  yet  they  consider  that  there  are 
many  strong  cases,  which  have  and  will  occur,  where  the  restriction 
operates  as  a  bar  against  the  relief  of  suffering  poverty,  although  not 
attended  with  the  still  greater  calamity  of  sickness.  In  such  cases 
your  Committee  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  prudent  extension  of  our 
charities  might  be  made  to  comport  with  the  benevolent  intentions  of 
the  Society.  From  these  considerations  your  Committee  would  rec- 
ommend, that  the  Constitution  be  so  far  altered,  that  the  appropria- 
tions hereafter  made  by  the  Society  be  applied  to  such  persons  as  the 
Society,  or  the  Trustees  thereof,  may  consider  as  in  a  state  of  suffer- 
ing poverty,  although  it  may  not  be  accompanied  with  actual  sickness." 

Upon  these  suggestions  the  society  then  agreed  to  act,  and 
upon  them  it  still  acts,  after  the  lapse  of  threescore  years  and 
twelve. 

There  is  but  one  more  matter  that  it  is  necessary  to  mention 
in  the  history  of  this  foundation  of  the  fathers.  In  1830,  at  a 
time  when  the  beautiful  river  Charles  was  still  flowing  with 
pure  water,  a  committee  was  formed  to  "  consider  and  re]>ort  on 
the  expediency  of  erecting  a  bathing-house,  in  part,  or  wholly, 
at  the  expense  of  the  Society,  as  may  be  thought  desirable." 
The  society  was  not  in  a  hurry,  even  as  late  as  1830,  and  it  was 


KING'S  BATH-HOUSE.  273 

a  year  before  the  committee  made  its  report,  and  then,  on  the 
strength  of  it,  a  vote  was  passed  authorizing  the  treasurer  to 
pay  to  George  King  one  hundred  dollars,  "  whenever  said  King 
has  erected  a  convenient  bathing-house  adjoining  to  or  near  the 
old  Brighton  Bridge,  so-called."  To  this  was  added  the  follow- 
ing proviso  :  "  Provided  the  said  King  shall  make  and  deliver 
to  the  Treasurer  a  written  engagement  that  each  of  the  present 
members  of  the  Society  shall  be  entitled  to  a  season  ticket 
for  the  use  of  himself  and  family  for  the  first  season  after 
the  same  shall  be  completed,  and  that  thereafter  each  pi^esent 
member  shall  be  entitled  to  a  season  ticket  in  each  succeeding 
year  on  the  following  terms,  viz. :  heads  of  families  on  the  pay- 
ment of  two  dollars  annually  and  other  members  on  the  pay- 
ment annually  of  one  dollar."  This  vote  made  it  desirable 
that  an  authentic  list  of  the  members  should  be  on  record, 
and  accordingly  such  a  list  was  placed  on  the  books.  It  is 
as  follows :  Abiel  Holmes,  Henry  Ware,  Levi  Farwell,  Levi 
Hedge,  Israel  Porter,  E.  W.  Metcalf,  James  Munroe,  A.  Big- 
low,  Sidney  Willard,  William  Hilliard,  William  Brown,  T.  L. 
Jennison,  Asahel  Stearns,  W.  J.  Whipple,*  Abel  Willard,* 
James  Brown,  Charles  Folsom,  Joseph  Story,  Josiah  Quincy, 
William  Wells,  Stephen  Higginson,  James  Hayward,  N.  J. 
Wyeth,  William  Watriss,*  F.  J.  Higginson,  Joseph  Foster, 
Thomas  W.  Coit,  Otis  Danforth,  John  Farrar.  Those  marked 
with  a  star  are  single  men. 

It  may  have  seemed  to  the  members  that  this  legislation  was 
rather  more  for  the  advantage  of  the  members  than  for  that  of 
the  "  sick,"  indigent.  Or  otherwise,  and  this  may  be  the  reason 
why  in  the  following  year  it  was  voted  that  an  appropriation 
for  the  purchase  of  tickets  for  the  bath  be  made,  so  that  five 
dollars'  worth  might  be  put  in  the  hands  of  each  of  the  three 
physicians,  "  Drs.  Timo.  L.  Jennison,  Sylvanus  Plyrapton,  and 
Francis  J.  Higginson,"  "  to  be  by  them  from  time  to  time  given 
to  such  individuals  as,  in  the  opinion  of  said  physicians,  may 
be  benefited  by  their  use,  and  whose  circumstances  may  render 
such  an  appropriation  conformable  to  the  objects  of  this  So- 
ciety." 

During  the  eighty-one  years  of  the  life  of  the  society  it  has 
had  eleven  presidents.  Dr.  Holmes  served  for  the  longest 
term,  —  twenty-three  years.  He  was  foUowed  by  Professor 
Joseph  Story,  the  distinguished  jurist ;  Professor  Simon  Green- 


274  AN  OLD-TIME  SOCIETY. 

leaf,  whose  widow,  sister  of  the  poet  Longfellow,  still  lives  in 
Cambridge  ;  Hon.  John  G.  Palfrey,  the  historian  ;  William  M. 
Vaughan,  the  late  revered  founder  of  the  Social  Union ;  and 
later,  by  Dr.  Francis  Greenwood  Peabody,  Plummer  Professor 
in  Harvard  College;  Dr.  Joseph  H.  Allen,  the  late  Samuel 
Batchelder ;  and  the  present  head  of  the  society,  Professor  Fran- 
cis J.  Child. 


EAST  END  CHRISTIAN  UNION. 

In  October,  1875,  Mr.  W.  G.  Clapp  began  missionary  work 
in  the  easterly  part  of  Cambridgeport,  and  established  the  next 
year  a  Sunday-school,  which  gradually  increased.  In  order  to 
build  a  suitable  hall  for  the  enlarging  work,  a  fair  was  held  in 
1888,  and  about  12000  was  raised.  The  present  corporation 
was  formed  in  1889.  Mr.  John  H.  Walker  became  superin- 
tendent of  the  Sunday-school  in  1890,  The  building  was 
erected  in  1891  at  a  cost  of  about  14000,  and  is  free  from  debt.. 
In  September,  1892,  it  was  decided  that  the  Union  should  be 
kept  open  day  and  evening,  and  that  a  superintendent  should  be 
employed  to  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  work  at  the  building 
and  in  the  neighborhood.  Mr.  Walker  was  secured  to  fill  this 
position,  and  the  result  has  been  a  steady  increase  of  the  useful- 
ness of  the  Union.  In  January,  1896,  a  gymnasium,  bath-room, 
and  workshop  were  established  in  the  adjacent  building. 

The  Union  building  is  located  on  Brewery  Street,  in  Cam- 
bridgeport, between  Main  and  Washington  streets,  and  near 
their  junction.  There  is  a  large  hall,  and  in  it,  and  in  three 
smaller  rooms,  most  of  the  classes  are  held.  The  superintend- 
ent cooperates  with  the  Associated  Charities.  All  eases  of 
need  are  immediately  provided  for. 

The  front  room  on  the  first  floor  is  well  supplied  with  reading 
matter.  There  is  also  a  lending  library  of  one  thousand  vol- 
umes.    Visitors  are  always  welcomed. 

The  new  rooms  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street  accommodate  the 
gymnasium,  bath-room,  and  workshop,  which  are  open  after- 
noon and  evening.  The  Triangle  Club  of  the  Union,  consisting 
of  boys  divided  into  senior  and  junior  members,  makes  use  of 
these  rooms. 

The  officers  at  present  are :  president.  Rev.  T.  F.  Wright, 
42  Quincy  Street ;  vice-president.  Rev.  Alexander  McKenzie, 
12  Garden  Street ;  treasurer,  Frederick  W.  Rogers,  5  Craigie 
Street ;  secretary.  Miss  Helen  L.  Bayley,  133  Austin  Street. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  HOSPITAL. 

By  dr.  MORRILL  WYMAN. 

Cambridge  has  not  been  wanting  in  its  charities  even  in  its 
earliest  times.  The  Church,  which  was  then  the  State,  charged 
itself  with  the  care  of  the  sick  poor.  Some  were  aided,  in  a 
small  way  to  be  sure,  in  their  own  houses.  Dr.  Paige  in  his 
history  gives  us  a  list  of  charges,  quaintly  expressed,  from  which 
it  appears  that  Brother  Towne  has  £1  toward  his  expenses  in 
sickness ;  Sister  Banbrick,  being  sick,  "  had  a  breast  of  mut- 
ton ; "  Sister  Albone  71bs.  of  venison,  some  physic,  and  a  bottle 
of  sack,  and  brother  Sill  four  quarts  of  sack  for  his  refreshment 
in  times  of  "  fayntness."  Others  were  "aided  in  supply  of 
their  manifold  necessyties."  About  1663  the  care  of  the  poor 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  town,  and  for  a  hundred  years  after 
the  poor  were  cared  for  by  the  selectmen  in  private  families. 
In  1779  the  first  workhouse  and  almshouse  was  opened  on  the 
comer  of  Boylston  and  South  streets.  This  proving  unsatis- 
factory, soon  another  was  built  on  the  corner  of  North  Avenue 
and  Cedar  Street,  and  called  the  Poor's  House.  Here,  for 
the  first  time,  were  appointed  overseers  of  the  poor,  distinct 
from  the  selectmen,  who  were  charged  with  providing  eveiy- 
thing  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  poor,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  physician.  This  served  the  purpose  till  1818,  when 
a  third  was  built  in  the  square  bounded  by  Harvard,  Norfolk, 
Austin,  and  Prospect  streets.  In  1836  this  last  was  burned 
with  one  of  its  wretched  inmates.  Then  followed  a  larger  and 
much  better  building  of  brick  on  the  banks  of  Charles  Eiver, 
where  the  Riverside  Press  now  stands.  It  was  well  arranged 
and  well  managed,  and  some  parts  of  the  building  still  remain. 
This  beautiful  spot  was  abandoned  in  1849  for  the  present  stone 
structure  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  city,  adjoining  the 
Somerville  line. 

Besides  the  public  provisions  for  the  sick  poor,  other  chari- 


MISS  EMILY  E.  PARSONS.  211 

ties  have  been  created  in  Cambridge  by  bequests  and  gifts. 
That  of  John  Foster  for  the  jioor  of  the  First  Parish ;  of  Levi 
Bridge  under  the  care  of  the  overseers  for  the  time  being,  to 
be  expended  for  the  deserving  poor  of  Cambridge ;  of  Daniel 
White  for  fuel ;  of  Charles  Sanders,  of  Cambridge,  the  income 
of  ilO,000  for  the  prevention  of  intemperance  and  the  reclaim- 
ing of  inebriates,  and  again  of  the  same  Charles  Sanders  a  trust 
of  f400,000  in  aid  of  objects  and  purposes  of  benevolence  or 
charity,  public  or  private,  a  part  of  which  is  annually  distrib- 
uted in  Cambridge.  To  these  we  must  add  the  charities  of 
the  churches,  the  Cambridge  Humane  Society,  the  Avon  Home 
for  Children,  and  of  individuals,  a  constantly  flowing  stream, 
the  springs  of  which  are  known  only  to  individuals.  The 
amount  of  these  charities  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 

But  these  aids,  as  a  little  reflection  will  show,  do  not  meet 
the  wants  for  which  hospitals  are  built.  Although  the  sick  in 
the  almshouses  are  accommodated  with  a  hospital-room,  and 
receive  all  the  attention  and  kindly  care  possible  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, it  is  after  all  a  poorhouse.  It  is  a  mingling  of 
those  who  have  become  sick  through  no  fault  of  their  own  with 
the  vicious,  the  degraded,  those  who  have  lost  their  citizenship, 
and  even  the  criminal.  Reason  or  philosophize  about  it  as  we 
may,  the  very  idea  of  going  to  an  almshouse  carries  with  it  a 
sense  of  degradation.  It  is  no  place  for  honest,  well-intentioned 
persons  who  only  ask  our  aid  when  sick  or  disabled. 

With  all  the  aid  afforded  by  the  churches,  by  bequests,  by 
the  trusts  we  have  just  enumerated,  and  by  individuals,  and  all 
that  the  city,  through  the  overseers  of  the  poor  and  its  medical 
officer,  may  give,  this  charity,  so  far  as  regards  the  relief  of  the 
sick  poor,  must  of  necessity  be  imperfect.  The  surroundings 
of  the  sick,  upon  which  so  much  depends,  can  be  but  slightly 
improved  by  gifts  of  money,  the  prescribed  medicines  may  not 
be  got  or,  if  got,  not  properly  administered ;  nursing  may  be 
entirely  wanting.  Thus  money  will  be  wasted,  and  either  the 
whole  attempt  fail  for  want  of  organization,  or  become  a  most 
expensive,  unsatisfactory  form  of  charity. 

With  a  strong  feeling  that  something  could  be  done  to  im- 
prove this  state  of  things.  Miss  Emily  E.  Parsons,  a  benevolent 
lady  of  Cambridge,  who  had  with  great  acceptance  served  two 
years  as  nurse  in  the  army  hospitals  in  Fort  Schuyler  and  on 
the  Mississippi,  during  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  opened  in 


278  THE  CAMBRIDGE  HOSPITAL. 

Cambridge,  in  1867,  with  the  aid  of  generous  individuals,  a 
hospital  for  women  and  children.  It  was  kept  open  a  year,  and 
then  closed  for  want  of  a  house.     It  was  reopened  in  1869. 

On  the  13th  of  February,  1871,  the  Cambridge  Hospital  for 
sick  and  disabled  persons  was  incorporated.  Early  in  1872  it 
became  evident,  by  reason  of  a  lack  of  interest  in  the  commu- 
nity, that  the  hospital  could  no  longer  be  kept  open  and,  with 
the  approval  of  Miss  Parsons,  it  was  closed  May  1,  1872.  It  is 
due  to  this  warm-hearted,  energetic  woman  to  declare  that  her 
interest  in  the  hospital  never  flagged,  and  the  hope  never  ceased 
that  the  day  would  come  when  the  dearest  wish  of  her  heart 
would  be  realized. 

In  December,  1873,  Mr.  Isaac  Fay  bequeathed  to  the  hospi- 
tal $10,000,  with  the  restriction  that  it  should  be  used  only  for 
the  erection  of  buildings.  This  generous  bequest  thus  restricted 
was  carefully  invested.  In  1881,  nine  years  after  the  hospital 
had  been  closed,  Cambridge  having  been  increased  by  20,000 
inhabitants,  the  necessity  for  it  became  more  and  more  appar- 
ent. We  were  sending  more  than  100  patients  annually  to  a 
single  Boston  hospital.  Interest  in  the  cause  was  renewed,  and 
by  liberal  gifts,  and  especially  by  a  "  Fair  "  held  by  the  ladies 
of  Cambridge  in  December  of  the  same  year,  $12,000  were 
added  to  its  funds.  These  funds  were  still  further  increased 
by  many  gifts  during  the  following  two  years.  Mr.  Fay's 
bequest  had  now  reached  $18,000. 

The  hospital  inclosure  contains  nine  and  one  third  acres. 
The  soil  is  dry,  gravelly,  and  sandy.  The  surface  upon  which 
the  buildings  stand  is  about  twenty-five  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  river,  and  sufficiently  distant  from  its  bank.  It  is  well 
raised  above  the  crown  of  Mount  Auburn  Street.  It  has  a  water 
front  of  500  feet.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  is  a  park 
or  meadow  of  seventy  acres,  given  by  Professor  Longfellow 
and  others  to  Harvard  College  "to  be  held  by  the  grantees 
as  marshes,  meadows,  gardens,  public  walks,  or  ornamental 
grounds,  or  as  the  site  of  college  buildings  not  inconsistent  with 
these  uses."  Facing  the  south,  the  wards  have  the  full  influence 
of  the  sun,  and  a  free  course  for  the  very  desirable  southwestern 
breezes  of  summer.  The  river  front  effectually  prevents  all 
dust  from  that  quarter.  In  process  of  time  the  number  of 
wards  must  be  increased,  and  for  this  purpose  all  the  nine  acres 
of  area  may  be  required. 


ITS  ANNUAL  COST.  279 

The  buildings  of  the  hospital  consist  of  a  central  or  adminis- 
tration building,  two  separate  wards,  one  for  men  and  one  for 
women,  and  a  separate  building  for  the  care  of  cases  of  con- 
tagious disease. 

The  hospital  was  opened  for  the  reception  of  patients  in  1886, 
and  since  that  time  nearly  3000  sick  persons  have  been  cared  for 
within  its  wards.  When  full  the  hospital  has  accommodations 
for  fifty  patients.  The  buildings  and  land  have  cost  more  than 
$100,000. 

The  annual  cost  for  maintenance  of  the  establishment  has 
been  for  the  past  few  years  nearly  $20,000,  a  simi  of  money 
considerably  beyond  the  income  of  the  invested  funds  of  the 
institution ;  the  deficit  is  made  good  by  the  gifts  of  the  people 
of  Cambridge. 


FREEMASONRY  IN   CAMBRIDGE. 

By   henry   ENDICOTT, 
past  gkand  master  of  the  grand  lodge  of  massachusetts. 

The  history  of  Freemasonry  in  Cambridge  begins  with  the 
organization  of  Amicable  Lodge,  for  which  the  preliminary 
steps  were  taken  as  early  as  February  6,  1805.  Even  at  this 
early  period  Masonry  held  an  honored  place  in  the  community. 
It  had  been  of  importance  still  earlier,  in  the  days  of  the  Revo- 
lution, and  had  assisted  materially  in  the  struggle  which  trans- 
formed a  group  of  dependent  colonies  into  a  nation.  The 
quarter-century  which  had  passed  since  the  surrender  of  Corn- 
wallis  had  not  obliterated  the  memory  of  those  days  when  Wash- 
ington was  at  the  head  of  a  lodge,  and  when  Joseph  Warren, 
Paul  Revere,  and  other  Revolutionary  heroes  were  accustomed 
to  meet  at  the  Bunch  of  Grapes  Tavern  and  talk  of  freedom  as 
a  Masonic  principle. 

The  Masonic  Association,  which  was  inaugurated  in  Cam- 
bridge by  eighteen  brethren  on  the  6th  of  February,  1805,  was 
known  at  first  as  the  Aurora  Society.  Meetings  were  lield  at 
Hovey's  Tavern,  on  the  southwest  corner  of  Main  and  Douglass 
streets.  The  original  call  included  a  statement  of  purpose 
signed  by  Daniel  Warren,  Asa  Ellis,  Benjamin  Bigelow,  Charles 
Parks,  Nathaniel  Livermore,  Isaac  Barnard,  Nathaniel  R. 
Whitney,  Jr.,  Nathan  Crane,  Samuel  Albee,  John  Wheeler, 
Andrew  Adams,  Luke  Hemenway,  Elijah  Learned,  Nathan 
Fiske,  Salmon  Morton,  Ebenezer  Watson,  Daniel  Smith,  and 
William  Warren.  This  list  includes  many  well-known  Cam- 
bridge names.  In  accordance  with  this  call,  the  first  meeting 
was  held  on  the  9th  of  February,  and  soon  after  by-laws  were 
adopted  and  oJBBcers  elected.  The  by-laws  provided  that  not 
more  than  seven  new  members  should  be  admitted ;  that  meet- 
ings should  be  held  every  Wednesday  evening  in  "  Mr.  Hovey's 


AMICABLE  LODGE.  281 

southeast  chamber,"  and  be  adjourned  at  half  past  nine  o'clock ; 
that  officers  should  be  elected  once  in  eight  weeks ;  and  that  a 
unanimous  vote  should  be  necessary  for  the  election  of  new 
members.  Andrew  Adams  was  the  first  Master,  Nathan  Crane 
and  Elijah  Learned  the  first  wardens.  The  petition  for  a  char- 
ter was  approved  by  Columbian  Lodge  of  Boston,  and  was 
presented  to  the  Grand  Lodge  on  June  10  of  the  same  year. 
After  a  trial  of  four  months  the  name  Aurora  seems  to  have 
proved  unsatisfactory,  and  the  petition  prayed  for  a  charter 
under  the  name  of  Oriental  Lodge.  As  this  name  had  been  pre- 
empted by  another  Massachusetts  Lodge,  it  was  finally  decided 
to  take  the  name  Amicable,  one  which  has  been  proved  to  be 
not  unfitting.  By  this  time  six  new  members  had  been  ad- 
mitted, James  Fillebrown,  Joseph  Ayres,  Richard  Bordman, 
Benjamin  Grover,  Samuel  Cutler,  and  Benjamin  Bowers ;  and 
one  of  the  original  signers,  Ebenezer  Watson,  had  dropped  out. 
The  ceremonies  attendant  upon  the  consecration  of  the  lodge 
and  the  installation  of  its  officers  were  held  on  St.  John's  Day, 
June  24, 1806,  when  the  Grand  Lodge  attended,  an  oration  was 
delivered,  and  a  banquet  served. 

Before  securing  a  permanent  home  for  itself,  the  lodge  met 
in  several  different  halls,  both  in  Harvard  Square  and  in  Cam- 
bridgeport.  Bordman's  Hall,  on  the  west  corner  of  Dunster 
Street  and  Harvard  Square,  long  ago  torn  down,  Porter's  Hall 
on  Brighton  Street,  Cutler's  Hall  in  Cambridgeport,  blown  down 
in  the  memorable  September  gale  of  1815,  all  provided  it  with 
temporary  shelter  for  longer  or  shorter  periods.  In  1818  it  fitted 
up  rooms  in  the  second  story  of  the  Franklin  Street  schoolhouse, 
which  remained  its  home  for  twenty  years.  This  schoolhouse, 
which  was  built  in  1809  on  a  lot  of  land  given  to  the  city  by 
Judge  Dana,  was  sold  in  1853  and  removed  from  the  city. 

The  ten  years  from  the  time  of  fitting  up  these  rooms  for 
permanent  use  to  the  year  1828  afforded  opportunity  for 
steady  growth.  To  quote  the  words  of  Dr.  Paige,  our  venera- 
ble historian,  to  whom  every  gleaner  in  these  fields  must  ac- 
knowledge his  great  indebtedness,  "  Its  meetings  were  well 
attended,  its  treasury  well  supplied,  and  its  officers  energetic 
and  among  the  most  respected  and  influential  citizens."  A 
curious  arrangement  was  made  with  the  town  in  1825,  in  ac- 
cordance with  which  the  lodge  bought  land  adjoining  the  Frank- 
lin School  lot,  and  fitted  up  on  it  the  old  Baptist  vestry,  to  be 


282  FREEMASONRY  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

used  by  the  town  as  a  schoolhouse,  in  exchange  for  a  lease  of 
the  lodge-rooms. 

The  anti-Masonic  excitement,  which  began  in  New  York 
State,  reached  Cambridge  in  full  force  about  the  year  1828. 
Looking  back  on  those  days,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  the 
extent  of  the  disturbance,  or  to  comprehend  the  causes  which 
led  to  such  bitter  and  unreasoning  opposition.  In  Massachu- 
setts, as  elsewhere,  the  persecution  was  "  carried  into  all  the 
relations  of  social  life  ;  the  ties  of  kinship  and  of  friendship 
were  rudely  severed  ;  the  springs  of  sympathy  were  dried  up  ; 
confidence  between  man  and  man  was  destroyed ;  members  of 
the  Masonic  institution  were  broken  up  in  their  business,  denied 
the  lawful  exercise  of  their  civil  franchise,  driven  with  ignominy 
from  public  offices,  from  the  jury  box,  and  from  the  churches, 
subjected  to  insult,  injury,  and  contumely  in  their  daily  walks." 
Thus  wrote  Charles  W.  Moore,  the  author  of  two  celebrated 
documents  addressed  to  the  public,  which  are  said  to  have 
proved  the  final  deathblow  to  anti-Masonry  in  this  State. 

Amicable  Lodge  maintained  its  ground,  though  with  some 
difficulty,  for  about  ten  years.  In  that  time  only  a  single 
candidate  was  initiated ;  many  members  naturally  lost  courage, 
and  meetings  were  necessarily  held  less  often  and  at  irregular 
intervals.  In  1838  it  was  decided  to  dispose  of  the  funds  and 
to  dissolve  the  organization.  It  was  the  intention  of  the  mem- 
bers to  convey  their  property  to  the  town  for  charitable  pur- 
poses, insisting,  however,  that  the  name  "Masonic  Charity 
Fund  "  should  be  perpetuated.  In  detail  the  conditions  were 
as  follows :  — 

1.  That  the  town  shall  pay  interest  annually  on  the  amount 
of  the  Fund  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum. 

2.  That  the  interest  arising  from  the  Fund  shall  be  annually 
paid  out  upon  application  to  such  past  or  present  members  of 
Amicable  Lodge,  or  their  immediate  families,  as  the  Selectmen 
for  the  time  being  shall  consider  objects  of  charity. 

3.  That  the  interest  unappropriated  as  above,  at  the  end  of 
each  year,  shall  be  added  to  and  form  a  part  of  the  permanent 
Fund. 

4.  That  when  the  amoimt  of  the  Permanent  Fund  shall  have 
accumulated  to  the  sum  of  five  thousand  dollars,  the  Selectmen 
for  the  time  being  shall  annually  distribute  the  interest,  in  such 
manner  as  they  shall  deem  proper,  to   any  residents  of  the 


GROWTH  AND  PROSPERITY.  283 

Town  of  Cambridge  not  public  paupers,  whom  they  may  con- 
sider worthy  objects  of  charity. 

5.    That  the  Fund  be  called  the  Masonic  Charity  Fund. 

Fortunately  for  the  Masons,  as  it  eventually  proved,  this 
offer  was  not  accepted,  owing  to  the  violence  of  the  distrust, 
which  showed  itself  in  many  forms  of  opposition.  The  money 
was  therefore  kept  in  the  hands  of  private  parties,  and  later  it 
formed  the  nucleus  of  the  present  charity  fund  of  the  lodge. 

The  storm  gradually  subsided,  as  the  element  of  polities 
was  eliminated  from  it,  and  common-sense  once  more  resumed 
its  authority  in  Cambridge  as  elsewhere.  After  an  interval  of 
seven  years  and  a  half,  a  petition  for  the  restoration  of  the 
charter  was  signed  by  eleven  members  of  the  lodge  as  it  stood 
in  1838,  to  which  were  added  the  signatures  of  other  brethren, 
who  thus  declared  their  interest  in  the  reorganization,  and 
their  purpose  to  support  the  lodge.  On  the  27th  of  December, 
1845,  the  charter  was  restored  to  Isaac  Livermore,  Isaiah  Bangs, 
Nathaniel  Livermore,  Thomas  F.  Norris,  Jacob  H.  Bates,  John 
Edwards,  Jonathan  Hyde,  Charles  Tufts,  John  Chamberlin, 
Nathaniel  Munroe,  and  Emery  Willard.  At  the  first  meeting 
when  the  lodge  was  organized  for  business,  several  new  mem- 
bers were  elected,  and  one  of  them,  Lucius  R.  Paige,  was 
elected  Master.  Simon  W.  Robinson,  the  Grand  Master  of 
the  Grand  Lodge,  installed  the  officers.  From  that  time  there 
has  been  no  break  in  the  regular  meetings  and  proper  business 
of  the  lodge. 

After  the  reorganization,  meetings  were  held  in  the  hall  of 
Friendship  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows,  on  Main  Street,  nearly 
opposite  Pearl  Street,  and  this  hall  was  used  until  its  destruc- 
tion by  fire  in  1854,  when  Amicable  Lodge  removed  with  the 
Odd  Fellows  to  Friendship  Hall  on  Pearl  Street,  between 
Green  and  Franklin  streets.  In  1866  their  present  commodi- 
ous apartments  were  fitted  up  on  Main  Street,  now  Massachu- 
setts Avenue,  No.  685. 

On  the  18th  of  October,  1855,  a  semi-centennial  address  was 
delivered  to  the  lodge  by  Rev.  Lucius  R.  Paige.  At  that  time 
Amicable  Lodge  numbered  only  sixty-two  members.  At  the 
seventy-fifth  anniversary,  J.  Warren  Cotton  was  the  orator  of 
the  occasion,  and  announced  the  number  of  members  as  206, 
notwithstanding  the  loss  of  forty  members,  who  had  transferred 
their  immediate  allegiance  to  Putnam,  Mount  Olivet,  and  Miz- 


284  FREEMASONRY  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

pah  Lodges.  The  present  number,  as  reported  for  the  year 
ending  August  31,  1895»  is  253. 

It  has  seemed  desirable  to  dwell  thus  on  the  early  history  of 
Amicable  Lodge,  since  it  is  one  in  which  all  the  lodges  of  the 
city  are  equally  interested.  It  antedates  the  earliest  of  the 
remaining  lodges  by  nearly  fifty  years,  —  years  marked  by 
unusual  vicissitudes  in  Masonic  institutions  everywhere,  —  and 
it  still  remains  the  largest  of  the  five  now  in  existence.  Of 
these,  Putnam  Lodge,  of  East  Cambridge,  numbering  now  159 
members  according  to  the  report  of  August  31,  1895,  was 
chartered  in  1854 ;  Mount  Olivet  Lodge  was  chartered  in  1863, 
and  reports  151  members  ;  Mizpah  was  chartered  in  1868,  and 
has  180  members ;  Charity  Lodge,  dating  from  1870,  has  101 
members.  The  Cambridge  Royal  Arch  Chapter  was  chartered 
in  1864,  and  Cambridge  Commandery  of  Knights  Templar 
in  1890. 

Freemasonry  in  Cambridge  owes  much  to  Rev.  Lucius  R. 
Paige,  who  has  had  an  interesting  Masonic  history.  As  the 
natural  result  of  early  elections  and  of  a  very  long  life  (Dr. 
Paige  is  now  in  his  ninety-fifth  year),  he  is  the  senior  Past  Mas- 
ter of  Masons  in  Massachusetts,  the  senior  Past  Commander 
of  Knights  Templar  in  the  State  and  probably  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  eminently  fitting  that  any  memorial  of  Freema- 
sonry in  Cambridge  should  contain  afPectiofaate  tribute  to  one 
who  championed  this  cause  when  it  most  needed  friends,  and 
who  has  always  brought  to  its  service  unwavering  fidelity, 
steady  judgment,  and  unusual  ability. 


ODD-FELLOWSHIP  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  rev.  GEORGE   W.  BICKNELL,  D.  D. 

Of  the  many  fraternal  organizations  which  exist  among  us, 
none  occupies  a  more  commanding  and  reputable  position 
than  that  of  the  Independent  Order  of  Odd  Fellows.  From  its 
early  inception  in  this  country  —  seventy-seven  years  ago  —  it 
has  steadily  gained  in  strength  and  popularity,  until  now  it  is 
one  of  the  most  powerful,  numbering  over  one  million  two  hun- 
dred thousand  members.  While  it  is  a  secret  society,  yet  its 
good  works  are  so  manifest,  and,  in  a  public  way,  it  has  so 
moved  in  and  among  the  people,  that,  with  its  evident  and 
demonstrated  intent  to  bless  mankind,  it  seems  to  be  of  and 
for  the  world. 

The  Order  was  first  founded  in  England  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  although  its  principles  were  entirely  different  from 
those  adopted  at  its  organization  in  the  United  States.  The 
first  American  lodge  was  instituted  in  Baltimore,  Maryland, 
April  26, 1819.  Its  primary  avowed  purpose  to  cultivate  socia- 
bility among  its  select  few  rapidly  changed  into  assuming  new 
responsibilities  and  prosecuting  new  lines  of  work.  It  adopted 
as  its  motto,  "  Friendship,  Love,  and  Truth,"  and  as  its  aim,  to 
adapt  these  principles  to  every-day  life.  Hence  it  has  made  its 
labor  practical.  Fidelity  to  the  laws  of  God,  the  laws  of  the 
State,  and  to  all  the  duties  of  citizenship,  is  strictly  enjoined. 
It  seeks  to  assist  brothers  when  in  need,  to  minister  to  the  sick 
and  suffering,  to  alleviate  distress  by  personal  presence,  to  exert 
an  uplifting  influence  by  which  character  may  be  better  un- 
folded and  a  richer  manhood  secured,  and  with  a  pure  bro- 
therly interest  and  affection  such  as  its  principles  inculcate,  to 
afford  protection  and  helpfulness  to  the  widows  and  orphans  of 
deceased  brothers.  Vast  sums  of  money  have  been  expended 
by  the  Order  in  the  ways  indicated.  More  than  money,  how- 
ever, has  been  the  ministration  of  love's  helpfulness,  the  posi- 


286  ODD-FELLOWSHIP  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

tive  assurance  of  a  strong  heart-sympathy  when  needed,  which 
has  a  tendency  to  warm  and  quicken  men  towards  distress  and 
suffering  everywhere.  Odd-Fellowship  does  not  endeavor  to 
take  the  place  of  any  other  organization  for  manly  and  Chris- 
tian work ;  but  it  seeks  to  supplement  and  augment  that  work, 
which  is  stronger  for  its  organization  and  activity. 

The  Order  consists  of  the  Lodge,  Encampment,  and  Daugh- 
ters of  Rebekah,  "  the  last  being  adopted  by  the  Grand  Lodge 
of  the  United  States  for  the  use  of  ladies  legally  connected  with 
subordinate  lodges  by  male  membership." 

Cambridge  has  six  subordinate  Lodges,  two  Encampments, 
and  two  Rebekah  Lodges,  all  active,  and  supported  by  an  ear- 
nest and  enthusiastic  membership  numbering  over  two  thousand. 
They  are  as  follows  :  — 

New  England  Lodge,  No.  4,  instituted  July  21,  1827,  274 
members ;  Friendship  Lodge,  No.  20,  instituted  September  26, 
1843,  365  members ;  Mount  Auburn  Lodge,  No.  94,  instituted 
October  15,  1845,  113  members  ;  Cambridge  Lodge,  No.  13, 
instituted  September  2,  1874,  240  members;  Mount  Sinai 
Lodge,  No.  169,  instituted  September  23,  1874,  205  members ; 
Dunster  Lodge,  No.  220,  instituted  July  11,  1893,  184  mem- 
bers ;  New  England  Encampment,  No.  34,  instituted  October 
3,  1865,  149  members ;  Charles  River  Encampment,  No.  22, 
instituted  September  1,  1846,  176  members;  Olive  Branch 
Rebekah  Lodge,  No.  21,  instituted  March  13,  1874,  143  mem- 
bers ;  Amity  Rebekah  Lodge,  No.  15,  instituted  June  29, 1871, 
189  members. 

Friendship  Lodge  celebrated  its  fiftieth  anniversary  in  1893 
at  Union  Hall,  which  was  one  of  the  most  elaborate  and 
largely  attended  celebrations  of  any  organization  in  the  history 
of  our  city. 

Two  large  and  handsome  buildings,  one  in  Cambridgeport, 
the  other  in  North  Cambridge,  have  been  erected  for  the  use  of 
the  Order. 


THE   GRAND   ARMY  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

By  JOHN  D.  BILLINGS. 

If  faith  is  to  be  judged  by  works,  then  must  the  faith  of 
those  who  regard  Cambridge  as  one  of  the  most  patriotic  of 
towns  find  abundant  justification.  The  history  of  the  settle- 
ment, from  its  eai'liest  beginning,  is  rich  in  testimony  to  this 
point.  Every  page  is  illimiined  with  patriotic  achievement  or 
endeavor,  the  somewhat  limited  patriotism  of  the  village  expand- 
ing into  a  broader  regard  for  the  colony  and  State,  and  later 
comprehending  the  whole  country. 

While  the  patriotic  spirit  shoidd  mark  every  department 
of  civil  life,  it  is  to  affairs  martial  that  we  are  prone  to  turn 
for  its  most  conspicuous  illustrations,  and  turning  in  that  direc- 
tion the  generations  of  this  city  to-day  have  inspiring  ideals 
set  before  them,  inciting  them  to  still  higher  endeavor.  Every 
call  for  men  to  defend  colonial  interests  or  national  integrity 
has  met  in  Cambridge  a  most  prompt  and  generous  response. 
No  better  proof  of  this  statement  can  be  adduced  than  is  shown 
by  her  contribution  of  men  to  serve  in  the  armies  of  the  Revo- 
lution, aggregating  in  number  one  fourth  of  her  entire  popula- 
tion. And  when  the  Union  was  threatened,  in  1861,  her 
promptness  and  patriotism  were  conspicuous,  for,  as  is  well 
kiiown,  the  first  volunteer  company  of  the  war  was  raised  in 
this  city,  and  her  total  enrollment  in  the  various  arms  of  the 
service  equaled  one  sixth  of  her  population,  —  a  showing,  it  is 
confidently  believed,  which  has  few  parallels  and  no  superiors 
among  municipalities  in  the  State. 

After  the  enemies  of  the  Union  had  been  overthrown,  the 
conquering  legions  returning  to  their  homes  were  confronted 
with  a  new  duty  which  they  had  scarcely  anticipated,  yet  one 
which  they  took  up  with  characteristic  promptness.  It  was  the 
care  of  those  men  who,  having  borne  the  brunt  of  battle,  had 
come  home  crippled  for  life ;    the  care  of  the   widowed  and 


288  THE  GRAND  ARMY  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

the  orphaned ;  the  aid  of  such  as  found  their  places  in  the 
workshop  and  the  factory  filled  by  others.  The  men  who  lived 
to  fight  it  out  were  not  willing  to  have  their  comrades  who  had 
touched  elbows  with  them  in  the  thick  of  the  fray  finish  a  pain- 
ful existence  in  the  almshouse,  or  stand  with  extended  palm  at 
a  street  corner.  They  believed  that  a  grateful  country  woidd 
keep  its  promises  with  these  men  whenever  an  organized  move- 
ment was  set  on  foot  in  their  behalf.  So  the  Grand  Army  of 
the  Republic  was  born,  and  once  fairly  established  and  cut 
loose  from  all  political  entanglements,  found  its  mission  clearly 
defined  and  pressing  for  attention. 

Massachusetts  stands  tenth  in  the  order  of  States  to  enlist 
in  the  ranks  of  this  organization.  Perhaps  no  one  of  the  earlier 
posts  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  new  order  more  heartily 
than  did  John  A.  Andrew  Post  15  of  Boston,  and  no  Post, 
it  is  believed,  had  so  large  a  suburban  membership.  A  nat- 
ural outgrowth  of  this  situation,  as  the  order  became  popular, 
was  the  withdrawal  of  members  from  the  suburbs  to  establish 
new  Posts  in  their  own  towns  or  villages.  Such  a  withdrawal 
occurred  under  the  enthusiastic  lead  of  the  late  Captain  J. 
Warren  Cotton.  Thus  Post  30  was  founded.  It  took  the 
name  of  William  H.  Smart,  an  estimable  Cambridge  soldier, 
the  first  of  her  long  list  of  martyrs  in  the  war.  The  pre- 
liminary meetings  were  held  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Cotton,  on 
Austin  Street,  and  the  following  names  appear  on  the  char- 
ter, which  was  granted  October  23, 1867,  by  Grand  Commander 
Austin  S.  Cushman  :  J.  Warren  Cotton,  J.  A.  Hildreth,  E.  G. 
Dike,  A.  C.  Wellington,  A.  M.  Lunt,  F.  A.  Lull,  David  P. 
Muzzey,  H.  O.  Marcy,  Charles  Munroe,  Jonas  F.  Capelle.  Of 
these,  all  but  four  had  been  members  of  Post  15.  The  Post 
was  instituted  at  Friendship  Hall  on  Pearl  Street,  where  it  sub- 
sequently made  headquarters  for  many  years. 

The  first  roster  of  officers  of  the  Post  was  as  follows :  Com- 
mander, J.  Warren  Cotton ;  Senior  Vice-Commander,  Jonas  F. 
Capelle ;  Junior  Vice-Commander,  David  P.  Muzzey ;  Adju- 
tant, Austin  C.  Wellington;  Quartermaster,  Frederick  A. 
Lull;  Chaplain,  H.  O.  Marcy.  The  commander  appointed 
Edward  G.  Dike,  Officer  of  the  Day  ;  J.  A.  Hildreth,  Officer  of 
the  Guard ;  Charles  Munroe,  Musician  ;  Alphonso  M.  Lunt,  Sen- 
tinel. 

About  680  veterans  have  been  mustered  into  the  Post ;  of 


SOLDIKKS'    MONl'MKNT,    CaMUIJIDGK    CoMMOX. 


CHARLES  BECK.  289 

these,  82  have  died.  January  1,  1896,  its  membership  in  good 
standing  was  231.  Its  estimated  expenditure  for  relief  work  of 
various  kinds  is  $18,000  ;  the  following  are  the  officers  of  1896  : 
Commander,  George  A.  Dietz ;  Senior  Vice-Commander,  B. 
F.  Hastings ;  Junior  Vice-Commander,  William  Gallagher ; 
Surgeon,  Charles  J.  Collins ;  Chaplain,  John  G.  Ellis ;  Officer 
of  the  Day,  G.  W.  Belcher ;  Adjutant,  James  B.  Soper ;  Quar- 
termaster, George  H.  Hastings ;  Officer  of  the  Guard,  James 
E.  HiU ;  Sergeant-Major,  Amos  D.  Jarvis  ;  Quartermaster-Ser- 
geant, Richard  M.  O'Brien.  Partly  through  disappointments 
resulting  from  an  election  of  officers,  but  largely  through  local 
desire  to  have  Posts  established  in  other  sections  of  the  city, 
then  less  compact  than  now,  two  withdrawals  from  the  Post 
occurred,  having  in  view  the  formation  of  Posts  in  Old  Cam- 
bridge and  East  Cambridge. 

Post  56  of  Old  Cambridge  was  the  first  of  these  to  receive 
a  charter.  It  bears  the  date  June  26,  1868,  and  the  signature 
of  A.  B.  R.  Sprague  as  Grand  Commander.  The  name  Charles 
Beck  was  adopted  in  honor  of  a  worthy  citizen  who  had  been  a 
professor  in  Harvard  College  at  one  time.  Too  old  to  enlist 
himself,  he  spent  time  and  money  in  obtaining  recruits  for  the 
service,  and  generously  contributed  to  the  comfort  of  the  men 
in  the  field.  He  was  a  thoroughly  loyal  and  large-hearted  cit- 
izen. The  following  were  the  charter  members  of  the  Post : 
Edward  G.  Dike,  Charles  Munroe,  Henry  L.  Mitchell,  Ste- 
phen S.  Harris,  George  H.  Prior,  Charles  H.  Bate,  George  A. 
Cole,  James  A.  Munroe,  J.  A.  Hildreth,  Lemuel  Pope,  Samuel 
K.  Williams,  A.  P.  Clarke. 

The  post  elected  the  following  as  its  first  officers:  Com- 
mander, Edward  G.  Dike ;  Senior  Vice-Commander,  Lemuel 
Pope ;  Junior  Vice-Commander,  J.  S.  Winkley ;  Adjutant, 
Henry  L.  Mitchell ;  Quartermaster,  Stephen  S.  Harris ;  Sur- 
geon, A.  P.  Clarke  ;  Chaplain,  David  B.  Muzzey ;  Officer  of  the 
Day,  J.  A.  Munroe ;  Sergeant-Major,  E.  C.  Coombs ;  Quarter- 
master-Sergeant, Nathaniel  Munroe ;  Musician,  Charles  Munroe. 

The  Post  bears  on  its  rolls  the  names  of  more  than  400  vet- 
erans. Sixty-two  have  died.  Its  present  membership  is  128. 
It  has  expended  a  large  amount  in  relief  work.  Its  present 
officers  are  these:  Commander,  A.  H.  Ricker;  Senior  Vice- 
Commander,  T.  J.  Breen;  Junior  Vice-Commander,  F.  J. 
O'ReiUy;  Adjutant,  A.  W.  Glidden ;  Quartermaster,  William 


290  THE  GRAND  ARMY  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 

N.  Eveleth ;  Surgeon,  Matthias  Fleck ;  Chaplain,  A.  W.  Cur- 
tis ;  Officer  of  the  Day,  M.  C.  Beedle ;  Officer  of  the  Guard, 
A.  J.  Littlefield ;  Sergeant-Major,  M.  J.  Conry ;  Quartermas- 
ter-Sergeant, George  W.  Warren. 

P.  Stearns  Davis  Post  57  of  East  Cambridge  was  chartered 
June  29,  1868,  by  Grand  Commander  Sprague.  It  was  named 
in  honor  of  the  lamented  colonel  of  the  Thirty-Ninth  Massachu- 
setts Volunteer  Infantry,  who  had  been  a  resident  of  that  ward, 
and  lost  his  life  in  the  field  before  Petersburg. .  These  names 
appear  on  the  charter :  A.  M.  Lunt,  Robert  L.  Sawin,  John 
T.  Wilson,  Jonas  F.  Capelle,  I.  M.  Bennett,  C.  F.  Blaisdell,  A. 
F.  Fifield,  James  A.  Grant,  John  H.  Blair,  Albert  L.  Norris, 
Oliver  H.  Webber,  John  Ford,  Henry  C.  Hobbs,  Otis  S. 
Brown,  Jeremiah  W.  Coveney,  Thomas  Mclntire,  Jr. 

July  10  the  Post  was  mustered  by  J.  Warren  Cotton,  and 
the  following-named  comrades  chosen  officers :  Commander, 
Robert  L.  Sawin ;  Senior  Vice-Commander,  J.  H.  Blair ;  Adju- 
tant, A.  M.  Lunt;  Quartermaster,  T.  J.  Mclntire;  Surgeon, 
A.  L.  Norris;  Sergeant-Major,  O.  S.  Brown.  At  subsequent 
meetings  C.  H.  Mclntire,  Jr.,  was  made  Junior  Vice-Commander, 
George  Graves,  Jr.,  Chaplain,  and  John  Ford  Quartermaster- 
Sergeant. 

The  Post  bears  on  its  rolls  462  names ;  91  comrades  have 
deceased.  It  has  expended  over  $11,000  in  its  relief  work.  It 
now  numbers  129  members.  Its  present  officers  are:  Com- 
mander, T.  I.  Quinn ;  Senior  Vice-Commander,  Andrew  Metzger ; 
Junior  Vice-Commander,  F.  O.  Mansfield ;  Surgeon,  Andrew 
Burke  ;  Officer  of  the  Day,  William  Voit ;  Adjutant,  John  Don- 
elan;  Quartermaster,  John  S.  Kenney;  Officer  of  the  Guard, 
John  Gilligan ;  Chaplain,  T.  H.  Ball ;  Sergeant-Major,  M.  F. 
Davlin ;  Quartermaster-Sergeant,  Peter  B.  Haley. 

Late  in  1886  Mr.  John  D.  BiUings,  then  a  member  of  E. 
W.  Kinsley  Post  113  of  Boston,  aided  by  Captain  John  S. 
Sawyer  and  Lieutenant  John  H.  Webber,  obtained  signatures 
for  a  new  Post  in  Cambridge.  The  application  for  a  charter 
was  signed  largely  by  men  who,  for  various  reasons,  had  never 
joined  the  order,  and  by  a  few  who  had  dropped  out  of  it.  A 
preliminary  meeting  was  held  in  St.  George's  Hall,  Hyde's 
Block,  Main  Street,  Thursday  evening,  January  6,  1887,  when 
the  name  of  John  A.  Logan  was  agreed  upon  for  the  new 
organization,   that  distinguished  general  having  recently  de- 


THE   WOMAN'S  RELIEF  CORPS.  291 

ceased.  The  meeting  nominated  a  list  of  officers.  January  13 
a  charter  was  granted  to  John  A.  Logan  Post  186  by  Depart- 
ment Commander  Kichard  F.  Tobin.  The  following  officers 
were  elected  and  installed :  Commander,  John  D.  Billings ; 
Senior  Vice-Commander,  John  S.  Sawyer;  Junior  Vice-Com- 
mander, James  G.  Harris ;  Surgeon,  Charles  E.  Vaughan  ;  Ad- 
jutant, W.  P.  Brown ;  Quartermaster,  Thomas  Pear ;  Officer  of 
the  Day,  D.  Webster  Bullard ;  Officer  of  the  Guard,  Emery  J. 
Packard ;  Sergeant-Major,  James  E.  Hall ;  Quartermaster-Ser- 
geant, J.  H.  Robinson ;  Chaplain,  W.  A.  Start. 

This  Post,  though  so  young,  bears  on  its  rolls  128  names. 
Fifteen  veterans  have  deceased.  Its  present  membership  is  96. 
It  has  expended  about  $1500  in  relief  work.  Its  present  officers 
are  these :  Commander,  Joseph  T.  Batcheller ;  Senior  Vice- 
Commander,  Samuel  Spink ;  Junior  Vice-Commander,  Fred.  A. 
Libbey ;  Surgeon,  Marshall  L.  Brown ;  Adjutant,  William  P. 
Brown  ;  Quartermaster,  Thomas  Pear ;  Chaplain,  J.  Willard 
Brown ;  Officer  of  the  Day,  Thomas  Allan ;  Officer  of  the 
Guard,  George  E.  Seward ;  Sergeant-Major,  G.  W.  B.  Litch- 
field ;  Quartermaster-Sergeant,  George  B.  Smith. 

Each  of  the  Posts  has  an  associate  membership  connected  with 
it,  and  all  but  Post  186  have  an  organization  of  the  Woman's 
Relief  Corps  as  an  auxiliary.  The  Posts  hold  occasional  camp- 
fires,  have  lectures,  and  in  various  ways  aim  to  keep  alive  the 
fraternal  spirit,  and  by  fairs  and  divers  forms  of  entertainment 
replenish  their  relief  funds  whenever  necessary,  loyally  and 
generously  supported  in  their  work  by  their  fellow-citizens,  to 
whom  they  have  never  yet  appealed  in  vain. 


KNIGHTS  OF  PYTHIAS. 

By  EBEN  W.  pike. 

St.  Omer  Lodge,  No.  9,  Knights  of  Pythias,  received  its 
charter  April  11,  1884,  and  with  a  list  of  nearly  100  names 
entered  upon  the  work  of  the  order.  For  twelve  years  it  has 
done  a  large  amount  of  charitable  work  in  this  city,  and  to-day, 
with  a  membership  of  over  200,  ranks  among  the  lirst  in  the 
grand  domain  of  Massachusetts. 

Recognizing  as  it  does  the  universality  of  human  brother- 
hood, and  embracing  the  world  within  its  jurisdiction,  its  funda- 
mental principles  are  solely  for  the  cultivation  of  friendship, 
charity,  and  benevolence.  Nothing  of  a  sectarian  or  political 
character  has  ever  been  permitted  within  its  portals,  and  obedi- 
ence to  law  and  loyalty  to  government  are  its  cardinal  princi- 
ples ;  with  these  in  view,  and  with  justice  to  all,  no  doubt  can 
exist  as  to  its  true  and  good  intentions.  There  can  be  found 
in  the  ranks  of  St.  Omer  Lodge  men  from  all  classes  of  life, 
and  among  its  Past  Chancellors  are  those  who  have  held  the 
highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  city. 


IMPROVED   ORDER  OF  RED  MEN. 

On  May  24,  1887,  there  assembled  a  number  of  citizens  of 
this  city  for  the  purpose  of  forming  an  association,  or  what  is 
now  called  a  Tribe,  of  Red  Men,  under  authority  and  by  con- 
sent of  the  Great  Council  of  the  Improved  Order  of  Red  Men 
of  this  Reservation  (Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts),  and  to 
further  the  principles  of  freedom,  friendship,  and  charity  in 
this  vicinity.  The  gathering  was  effected  by  one  who  was  a 
leading  society  man,  and  who  took  a  great  deal  of  interest  in 
the  organization.  On  the  14th  day  of  June  of  the  same  year  a 
charter  was  procured,  and  the  formation  of  the  tribe  was  com- 
pleted with  a  membership  of  over  100  men,  and  later  the  name 
of  Massachusetts  Tribe,  No.  44,  was  adopted,  and  the  first 
council  fire  of  the  tribe  was  kindled.  From  June  9,  1887,  to 
the  present  date  the  tribe  has  met  regularly  every  second  and 
fourth  Tuesday  of  the  month,  and  with  attention  to  the  benefits 
of  the  order  has  succeeded  in  placing  upon  its  list  of  members 
some  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  city. 

The  order  itself  is  one  of  the  oldest  known,  founded  on 
principles  which  are  truly  American,  and  having  among  its 
sig-ns,  grips,  and  passwords  everything  pertaining  to  the  aborigi- 
nes of  America. 

The  terms  applied  to  the  months  of  the  year,  as  well  as  those 
applied  to  its  finances,  all  speak  of  the  red  man  of  the  forest, 
and  a  study  into  its  mysteries  will  demonstrate  the  rude  yet 
perfectly  intelligible  manner  in  which  he  chronicled  all  affairs. 
Freedom  is  one  of  the  cardinal  principles,  and  friendship  is 
strongly  exemplified  in  all  its  phases,  while  true  charity  is 
depicted  in  every  act  of  its  members,  by  extending  the  helping 
hand  to  the  distressed. 

Ponema  Tribe  meets  the  second  and  fourth  Mondays  in  each 
month. 


CAMBRIDGE   CLUBS. 

By  GEORGE  ROWLAND  COX. 

Cambridge  is  famed  for  the  many  social  clubs  connected  with 
the  university  and  the  town.  Their  purposes  are  varied,  the 
musical,  literary,  scientific,  and  social  tastes  of  its  people  are 
fully  provided  for.  Among  those  organized  for  social  purposes, 
the  most  unique,  perhaps,  is  the  Colonial  Club,  which  com- 
bines both  town  and  gown  ;  for  the  professor  in  the  university 
and  the  business  man  of  the  city  are  included  in  its  membership. 
This  club  was  organized  in  1890  by  J.  J.  Myers  (its  promoter), 
Charles  W.  Eliot,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  Henry  H. 
Gilmore,  Alvin  F,  Sortwell,  J.  G.  Thorp,  Chester  W.  Kingsley, 
Henry  P.  Walcott,  William  A.  Munroe,  Charles  J.  Mclntire, 
Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  Edmund  Reardon,  and  Edmund  A. 
Whitman. 

The  Henry  James  house.  No.  20  Quincy  Street,  was  pur- 
chased immediately  after  organization,  and  in  1892  it  was 
entirely  remodeled,  and  a  very  large  addition  made  to  it.  It 
has  the  conveniences  of  a  modern  club-house,  which  include 
reading  and  card  rooms,  library,  dining-rooms  for  members,  as 
well  as  for  ladies,  assembly  hall,  bedrooms,  billiard-rooms,  and 
bowling-alleys. 

The  membership  of  the  club  is  about  four  hundred,  and  com- 
prises a  most  representative  array  of  men.  Its  past  presidents 
include  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  1890-93,  and 
Charles  W.  Eliot,  1893-95.  Its  present  secretary  and  treasurer 
have  served  continuously  since  the  first  organization.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  club  is  not  merely  to  provide  the  usual  place  for 
reading-rooms  and  social  intercourse,  but  to  bring  the  men  of 
the  various  sections  of  the  city  into  closer  relationship.  Its 
success  has  been  marked,  and  no  club  stands  higher,  or  offers 
greater  inducements  to  men  who  desire  a  place  where  club  life 
can  be  found  in  its  most  dignified  form. 


Colonial  Club  House. 


Nkwtownk  Club  House. 


THE  NEWTOWNE  AND  CAMBRIDGE  CLUBS.       295 

The  officers  are:  J.  J.  Myers,  president;  Judge  John  W. 
Hammond,  Richard  H.  Dana,  Judge  C.  J.  Mclntire,  Arthur 
E.  Denison,  vice-presidents  ;  George  Rowland  Cox,  secretary ; 
Edmund  A.  Whitman,  treasurer. 

The  Newtowne  Club  of  North  Cambridge  had  its  origin 
in  the  Rindge  Club,  which  was  organized  in  December,  1893. 
The  name  Rindge  was  discarded  the  following  year  at  the  re- 
quest of  Mr.  Rindge,  and  "  Newtowne  "  substituted  in  its  place. 
The  club  was  incorporated  July  23,  1894,  and  it  is  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  handsome  club-house,  colonial  in  design,  located 
on  the  corner  of  Massachusetts  Avenue  and  Davenport  Street. 
The  object  of  the  club  is  to  promote  physical  culture  and  social 
intercourse  among  its  members.  The  club-house  has  a  commo- 
dious gymnasium  and  six  fine  bowling-alleys.  The  membership 
is  about  four  hundred  and  twenty-five,  and  includes  many  well- 
known  men  in  the  city.  The  officers  are :  E.  D.  Mellen,  presi- 
dent ;  W.  H.  Lerned,  vice-president ;  John  C.  Sylvia,  secre- 
tary; George  W.  Apsey,  treasurer. 

The  Cambridge  Club  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  Harvard 
Lyceum,  an  organization  formed  October  26,  1879,  by  citizens 
mostly  of  Cambridgeport,  with  the  object  "  to  promote  literary 
and  social  culture  among  its  members,  and  especially  to  con- 
sider and  discuss  questions  relating  to  the  welfare  of  the  city  of 
Cambridge."  Meetings  were  held  at  Pythian  Hall,  Main  Street. 
At  a  meeting  held  November  17,  1881,  an  amended  constitu- 
tion and  by-laws  were  adopted,  and  it  was  voted  to  change  the 
name  to  the  Cambridge  Club.  Meetings  are  held  monthly,  ex- 
cepting in  summer,  with  a  dinner  at  each.  The  aim  of  the  club 
is  to  create  and  keep  alive  in  the  community  a  keen  interest  in 
all  matters  relating  to  the  welfare  of  Cambridge  ;  and  with  that 
object  in  view,  the  discussions  at  its  meetings  have  generally 
been  confined  to  subjects  of  that  character.  The  limit  of  mem- 
bership is  one  hundred,  and  there  are  no  vacancies.  Its  officers 
are :  Dr.  Henry  O.  Marcy,  president ;  Judge  Charles  J.  Mc- 
lntire, vice-president ;  Charles  F.  Wyman,  secretary ;  Will  F. 
Roaf,  treasurer. 

The  Economy  Club  is  an  organization  of  young  men  which 
began  as  a  debating  society,  and  has  broadened  into  a  well- 
known  and  influential  institution  of  the  town.  It  was  organized 
in  1872,  and  has  had  a  continuous  career  ever  since,  this  long 
and  vigorous  life  making  it  remarkable  among  clubs  of  its  char- 


296  CAMBRIDGE  CLUBS. 

acter.  Not  a  few  men  who  have  won  distinction  in  various 
fields  of  activity  have  been  members  of  the  Economy  Club,  and 
owe  much  to  its  training.  Its  object  is  the  study  and  discussion 
of  economic,  social,  political,  and  historical  questions.  The 
management  is  in  the  hands  of  the  president  and  executive 
committee,  yet  club  affairs  are  fully  discussed  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  preserve  town-meeting  methods.  The  club  occasionally 
invites  men  eminent  in  their  special  lines  of  thought  to  address 
it,  and  other  organizations  to  participate  in  joint  debates ;  but 
it  relies  principally  upon  the  efforts  of  the  members,  thereby 
preserving  its  traditions  and  its  esprit  de  corps.  The  individ- 
uality of  the  club  is  marked  by  its  singleness  of  purpose,  by  the 
composite  character  of  its  membership,  and  by  the  fact  that  it 
is  non-sectarian  and  non-political. 

The  Cantabrigia  Club  was  organized  in  March,  1892,  and 
Mrs.  Estelle  M.  H.  Merrill  was  elected  president.  The  object 
of  the  club,  as  set  forth  in  its  constitution,  is  threefold,  "  so- 
cial, literary,  and  humanitarian.  In  its  work  it  shall  endeavor, 
not  only  among  its  members,  but  in  the  community,  to  promote 
good  fellowship  and  the  highest  form  of  social  life ;  to  encour- 
age mental  and  moral  development,  and  to  aid  by  its  organized 
effort  such  worthy  causes  as  may  secure  its  sympathy."  Its 
work  is  divided  among  eight  committees,  —  on  literature,  art, 
science,  music,  civics,  the  home,  philanthropy,  and  current 
events,  each  presided  over  by  a  chairman.  The  membership  of 
the  club  is  more  than  six  hundred,  and  its  influence  in  the  com- 
munity has  been  marked.  The  officers  of  the  club  are :  Mrs. 
William  A.  Bancroft,  acting  president;  Miss  Grace  S.  Rice, 
corresponding  secretary ;  Mrs.  Agnes  D.  Wilder,  treasurer. 


THE  CITIZENS'   TRADE  ASSOCIATION. 

The  Citizens'  Trade  Association  of  Cambridge  was  incorpo- 
rated in  1892  by  John  H.  Corcoran,  Oliver  J.  Rand,  George 
G.  Wright,  John  S.  Sawyer,  Fred  L.  Beunke,  Herman  Bird, 
E.  Burt  Phillips,  T.  H.  Raymond,  Edwin  H.  Jose,  David  T. 
Dickinson,  Daniel  E.  Frasier,  C.  W.  Kingsley,  George  D. 
Chamberlain,  Farwell  J.  Thayer,  Charles  Bullock,  Henry  O. 
Marcy,  G.  W.  Burditt,  Edmund  Reardon,  and  George  W. 
Gale. 

The  object  of  this  association  is  to  establish  and  maintain  a 
place  for  friendly  and  social  meetings  of  the  business  men  of 
Cambridge,  and  to  promote  the  weKare  and  business  interests 
of  the  city. 

The  association  fills  a  double  need  in  Cambridge,  for  besides 
the  business  phase,  which  is  most  important,  its  rooms  are  well 
adapted  for  semi-club  purposes,  and  are  freely  used  in  this  way. 
The  membership  is  composed  of  manufacturers,  merchants,  and 
professional  men,  and  its  work  has  been  very  effective.  It 
holds  monthly  meetings,  at  which  matters  of  public  interest  are 
very  frankly  discussed,  and  before  any  action  is  taken,  an  op- 
portunity is  given  for  both  sides  of  the  question  to  be  strongly 
presented.  Many  great  public  movements  have  originated 
here  and  been  taken  up  and  carried  out  by  the  citizens  at  large. 
One  of  the  most  important  was  the  agitation  of  the  park  ques- 
tion, which  finally  received  the  attention  and  effective  interest 
of  the  city  government.  Among  the  latest  efforts  in  this 
direction  was  the  movement  for  the  celebration  of  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  city.  The  original  suggestion  toward  the 
accomplishment  of  this  was  made  at  a  meeting  of  the  associa- 
tion in  the  spring  of  1895. 

The  officers  are  as  follows :  president,  Henry  O.  Houghton ; 
vice-president,  David  A.  Ritchie ;  treasurer,  Oliver  J.  Rand ; 
clerk,  Theodore  H.  Raymond ;  auditor,  Will  F.  Roaf ;  directors, 
John  L.  Odiorne,  William  P.  Brown,  Enoch  Beane,  Charles  P. 
Keith,  John  F.  Danskin. 


III. 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

By  GEORGE  ROWLAND  COX. 
FINANCIAL. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1826  that  Cambridge  had  any  bank- 
ing facilities  of  its  own,  although  it  had  long  been  a  wealthy 
town.  In  March  of  that  year  the  Cambridge  Bank  was  char- 
tered. The  first  meeting  of  its  stockholders  was  held  in  Eben- 
ezer  Kimball's  tavern,  March  22,  1826.  William  I.  Whipple 
was  elected  moderator,  and  Thomas  Foster  clerk.  The  act  in- 
corporating the  "  Cambridge  Bank "  had  been  passed  by  the 
General  Court,  March  4,  and  at  this  meeting  the  charter  was 
accepted.  Subscriptions  for  the  stock  were  opened,  and  a  board 
of  directors  elected  as  follows :  James  P.  Chaplin,  William 
Hillard,  Newell  Bent,  Levi  Farwell,  William  Fiske,  John  Trow- 
bridge, Charles  Everett,  Isaiah  Bangs,  and  S.  P.  P.  Fay. 
Judge  Fay  declined  to  serve,  and  at  a  later  meeting,  March  31, 
Asahel  Stearns  was  elected  in  his  place. 

The  bank  was  capitalized  at  $150,000,  and  the  stock  was 
taken  by  residents  of  Boston,  Natick,  Watertown,  Brighton, 
Sudbury,  and  many  of  the  towns  of  eastern  Massachusetts, 
but  the  larger  portion  was  placed  in  Cambridge.  In  1833, 
shortly  after  the  organization  of  the  Charles  River  Bank,  it  was 
voted  to  reduce  the  capital  stock  to  $100,000,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  1834,  the  reduction  was  made.  It  has  remained  at 
this  figure  ever  since,  although  there  were  attempts  made  to 
raise  the  capital  to  $150,000  in  1853,  and  to  $200,000  in  1854. 

The  board  of  directors  held  its  first  meeting  March  27,  at 
the  house  of  Dr.  Chaplin  (corner  of  Austin  and  Inman  streets). 
Dr.  Chaplin  was  elected  the  first  president  of  the  bank.  Mar- 
tin Lane  was  elected  cashier,  and  Luke  Hemenway's  store  was 
purchased  for  the  bank's  quarters.  The  cashier  was  ordered  to 
report  for  duty  Monday  morning.  May  22,  but  it  is  probable 


302  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

that  the  bank  did  not  begin  business  until  the  following  Mon- 
day, the  29th.  It  is  said  that  it  opened  for  business  simulta- 
neously with  the  inauguration  of  hourly  coaches  between  Cam- 
bridge and  Boston.  The  bank  occupied  Mr.  Hemen way's  store 
until  it  bought  the  brick  building  numbered  689  Main  Street, 
where  it  had  its  rooms  on  the  second  floor.  The  bank  remained 
there  until  1870,  when  the  brick  building,  which  it  now  owns 
and  occupies,  was  erected. 

The  young  institution  prospered.  In  less  than  a  year  it 
paid  a  four  per  cent,  dividend,  and  its  stock  was  at  a  premium. 
In  1843  an  attempt  was  made  to  wind  up  its  affairs,  but  the 
attempt  did  not  succeed.  The  bank  reorganized  as  the  "  Cam- 
bridgeport  National  Bank  "  in  June,  1865. 

Dr.  Chaplin,  the  first  president,  died  in  October,  1828.  He 
was  succeeded  by  Deacon  Levi  Farwell,  who  resigned  in  Janu- 
ary, 1832,  to  accept  the  presidency  of  the  newly  organized 
Charles  River  Bank.  Judge  Fay  followed  Deacon  Farwell, 
resigning  in  December,  1842.  Rev.  Thomas  Whittemore  held 
the  presidency  till  his  resignation,  March,  1860.  Benjamin 
Tilton  finished  out  the  year,  and  in  the  following  October  Rev. 
Dr.  Lucius  R.  Paige,  at  that  time  filling  the  position  of  cashier, 
was  elected.  In  March,  1863,  Dr.  Paige  resigned  the  presidency 
to  accept  the  cashiership  again,  and  Robert  Douglass  was  made 
president.  He  carried  the  bank  through  the  trying  period  of 
the  reorganization,  and  resigned,  on  account  of  ill  health,  in 
January,  1882,  and  was  succeeded  by  Hon.  Asa  P.  Morse,  the 
present  incumbent. 

Since  the  organization  of  the  bank,  the  following  persons, 
in  addition  to  those  named  elsewhere,  have  served  on  the  board 
of  directors :  Thomas  Foster,  E.  T.  Hastings,  E.  W.  Metcalf, 
B.  Bigelow,  N.  Childs,  Francis  Bowman,  John  Hayden,  Ebene- 
zer  Kimball,  Charles  Haynes,  Abel  W.  Bruce,  Phineas  B. 
Hovey,  Hiram  Brooks,  Leonard  Stone,  Henry  Potter,  Flavel 
Coolidge,  W.  B.  Hovey,  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  Jeremiah 
Wetherbee,  Charles  Wood,  Edward  Hyde,  Ira  Stratton,  Alex- 
ander Dickinson,  Curtis  Davis,  Samuel  James,  and  Martin  L. 
Smith.  The  number  of  directors  has  changed  several  times  in 
the  bank's  history :  at  first  nine  members  constituted  the  board, 
later  this  was  increased  to  twelve,  then  it  dropped  back  to  nine 
again  ;  a  little  later  it  was  reduced  to  seven^  and  finally  to  five, 
the  present  number.     Of  the  first  board  of  directors  William 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  BANKS.  303 

Fiske  served  the  bank  tlie  longest ;  he  resigned  in  1851,  after 
twenty-five  years  of  service.  The  present  board  consists  of  Lucius 
R.  Paige,  Asa  P.  Morse,  Charles  James,  Frank  H.  Jones,  and 
Charles  Bidlock.  Dr.  Paige  was  elected  cashier  in  1857,  and 
he  has  served  the  bank  continuously,  in  different  capacities, 
since  that  time.  Mr.  Morse  has  been  connected  with  the  bank 
since  1860. 

Mr.  Lane  served  the  bank  as  cashier  from  its  inception,  1826, 
till  March,  1855,  when  he  resigned  on  account  of  ill-health. 
Dr.  Paige  held  the  position  till  March,  1860.  Joseph  Whitte- 
more,  late  principal  assessor,  followed  Dr.  Paige,  resigning  in 
February,  1863.  Dr.  Paige  took  the  office  again  temporarily, 
until  Seymour  B.  Snow  was  elected  in  August,  1864.  Mr. 
Snow  held  the  position  just  twenty  years.  He  resigned  in  1884, 
when  Mr.  Will  F.  Eoaf,  the  present  cashier,  was  promoted  to 
the  position.  The  report  of  the  bank  at  the  close  of  business 
February  28,  1896,  showed  a  surplus  fund  and  divided  profits 
of  $41,307,  and  deposits  amounting  to  $171,919. 

Middlesex  Bank  was  chartered  in  1832,  and  was  located 
in  East  Cambridge.  William  Parmenter  was  elected  president, 
and  William  Whitney  cashier.  The  bank,  after  a  short  exist- 
ence, was  obliged  to  wind  up  its  affairs  ;  it  redeemed  its  circu- 
lation, paid  its  depositors  in  full,  and  forty-two  per  cent,  of  its 
capital  to  its  stockholders. 

In  1853  the  Lechmere  Bank  was  chartered  with  a  capital 
of  $100,000.  Its  first  board  of  directors  consisted  of  Lewis 
Hall,  K.  S.  Chaffee,  Samuel  Slocomb,  Francis  Draper,  and 
Amory  Houghton.  Lewis  Hall  was  elected  president,  and  John 
Savage,  Jr.,  cashier.  Mr.  Hall  still  holds  the  office  of  presi- 
dent. The  bank  is  located  on  Cambridge  Street,  East  Cam- 
bridge, and  is  very  successful.  Its  capital  is  $100,000,  and 
February  28,  1896,  it  reported  a  surplus  fund  and  undivided 
profits  of  $82,090,  and  deposits  of  $183,598. 

National  City  Bank  was  organized  May  30,  1853,  under 
the  name  of  the  Cambridge  City  Bank,  with  Samuel  P.  Hey- 
wood,  Eliphalet  Davis,  John  Livermore,  George  W.  Whitte- 
more,  Henry  M.  Chamberlain,  George  T.  Gale,  and  William  P. 
Fiske  as  directors.  Mr.  Heywood  was  chosen  president  tempo- 
rarily, but  he  resigned  June  9,  1853,  and  John  Livermore  was 
elected  in  his  place.     Mr.  Livermore  is  the  only  one  of  the  ori- 


304  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

ginal  board  of  directors  now  living.  Edward  Richardson  was 
elected  cashier.  The  bank  began  business  in  the  building  then 
known  as  the  Cambridge  Athenaeum,  now  occupied  by  the  Pros- 
pect Union.  In  1865  the  bank  was  reorganized  as  a  national 
bank,  and  in  1885  its  charter  was  extended.  The  bank  was 
afterward  moved  to  the  building  on  the  corner  of  Main  and 
Norfolk  streets,  and  a  few  years  ago  again  moved  to  the  present 
location,  Massachusetts  Avenue  and  Inman  Street.  The  bank 
has  had  four  presidents  since  its  organization  :  Samuel  P.  Hey- 
wood,  John  Livermore,  George  T.  Gale,  and  Edwin  Dresser ; 
two  cashiers,  Edward  Richardson  and  Henry  B.  Davis.  The 
present  board  of  directors  is  composed  of  Edwin  Dresser,  Frank 
A.  Kennedy,  George  W.  Gale,  James  W.  Hazen,  and  Henry  B. 
Davis.  The  capital  of  the  bank  is  f  100,000.  Surplus  fund  and 
undivided  profits  at  close  of  business,  February  28, 1896,  were 
$82,950,  with  deposits  of  1299,390. 

Charles  River  Bank.  —  The  first  meeting  for  the  purpose 
of  organization  was  held  March  13,  1832,  in  the  office  of  Levi 
Farwell,  at  which  meeting  Mr.  Farwell  acted  as  chairman,  with 
C.  C.  Little  as  secretary.  The  first  board  of  directors  chosen 
was  Levi  Farwell,  J.  Coolidge,  C.  C.  Little,  J.  Brown,  A. 
Stearns,  William  Brown,  William  Watriss,  and  Robert  Fuller. 
On  March  30, 1832,  a  committee  consisting  of  Levi  Farwell  and 
C.  C.  Little  made  a  report  recommending  John  B.  Dana  as 
cashier,  with  a  salary  of  $900  per  annum.  The  committee  also 
reported  that  it  had  agreed  to  take  rooms  in  the  building  now 
occupied  by  the  Charles  River  National  Bank,  and  owned  by 
Harvard  University,  for  a  rent  of  $150  per  year.  Mr.  Dana 
accepted  the  position  as  cashier  May  21,  1832. 

In  1864  the  bank  was  reorganized  as  the  Charles  River  Na- 
tional Bank,  and  has  an  average  deposit  of  $600,000,  with  a 
business  through  the  Boston  Clearing  House  exceeding  annu- 
ally $1,200,000. 

The  presidents  of  the  institution  have  been  Levi  Farwell, 
elected  March  20, 1832,  died  in  1844 ;  Charles  C.  Little,  elected 
1844,  died  in  1869 ;  Samuel  B.  Rindge,  elected  1869,  died  in 
1883  ;  David  B.  Flint,  elected  1883,  resigned  in  1887 ;  Charles 
E.  Raymond,  elected  1887,  resigned  1889.  Walter  S.  Swan, 
now  its  president,  was  elected  in  1889.     Mr.  Dana,  its  first 


A  PATRIOTIC  OFFER.  305 

cashier,  held  the  position  until  November  22,  1858,  when  he 
resigned,  and  Eben  Snow  was  elected.  Mr.  Snow  resigned 
January  1,  1890,  and  George  H.  Holmes,  the  present  cashier, 
was  elected. 

The  board  of  directors  is  composed  of  Walter  S.  Swan,  Wil- 
liam T.  Richardson  (elected  a  director  in  1845),  James  A. 
Wood,  R.  N.  Toppan,  and  AYilliam  B.  Durant.  The  capital  of 
the  bank  is  $100,000,  and  it  has  a  surplus  and  undivided 
profits  of  $61,471. 

The  First  National  Bank.  —  In  the  autumn  of  1860, 
during  the  period  when  civil  war  menaced  the  country,  and 
filled  the  public  mind  with  anxious  thoughts,  and  at  a  time 
when  the  country  was  suffering  a  consequent  financial  depres- 
sion, a  few  of  the  leading  citizens  of  Cambridge  conceived  the 
idea  of  organizing  a  new  bank,  an  action  due  to  the  foresight, 
courage,  and  enterprise  of  Mr.  Benjamin  Tilton,  who  was  its 
controlling  spirit. 

The  Harvard  Bank  was  organized  November  7  under  the 
general  banking  laws  of  the  Commonwealth,  with  a  capital  of 
$200,000,  and  occupied  rooms  in  the  house  known  as  the  Dowse 
building,  at  the  easterly  corner  of  Main  and  Prospect  streets. 
Its  first  directors  were  Benjamin  Tilton,  Daniel  U.  Chamber- 
lin,  George  Livermore,  Alanson  Bigelow,  John  Sargent,  Ed- 
ward Hyde,  CJtiarles  Wood,  Newell  Bent,  Louis  Colby,  WiUiam 
A.  Saimders,  Estes  Howe,  and  Z.  L.  Raymond ;  Hon.  Charles 
Theodore  Russell  acting  as  solicitor.  It  was  the  intention  of  the 
directors  to  begin  business  on  the  first  day  of  March,  1861,  but 
the  political  condition  of  the  country  was  unsettled,  and  as  the 
prevention  of  President  Lincoln's  inauguration  had  been  threat- 
ened, it  was  decided  to  postpone  opening  imtil  after  the  inau- 
guration had  taken  place.  The  banking-rooms  were  open  for 
business  on  the  5th  of  March.  An  interesting  event  occurred 
on  the  22d  of  April,  immediately  after  the  breaking  out  of 
the  war ;  at  a  meeting  of  the  directors  the  following  vote  was 
passed :  "  In  consideration  of  the  present  exigencies  in  public 
affairs,  the  president  of  this  bank  is  authorized  and  requested 
to  tender  a  loan  of  $50,000  to  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts." This  tender  was  made,  and  the  following  reply  was 
received  from  his  Excellency  Governor  Andrew :  — 


306  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts, 
Treasurer's  Office, 
Boston,  AprU  24,  1861. 

Benjamin  Tilton,  Esq.,  President  Harvard  Bank. 

Dear  Sir,  —  Your  communication  of  the  22d  inst.  containing  the 
offer  of  your  bank  of  a  loan  of  $50,000  has  been  placed  in  my  hands 
by  his  Excellency  Governor  Andrew  for  reply. 

He  desires  me  to  express  to  your  board  of  directors  his  sincere 
gratitude  for  the  intelligent  patriotism  which  has  prompted  your  liber- 
ality. No  immediate  necessity  existing  for  its  instant  acceptance,  I 
am  directed  to  say,  as  has  already  been  done  in  the  case  of  similar 
offers,  that  with  your  permission  he  will  hold  your  offer  in  reserve  for 
such  future  emergencies  as  may  arise. 

Very  truly  yours, 
,  Henry  K.  Oliver, 

Treasurer  and  Receiver  General. 

The  bank  paid  its  first  dividend  October  1,  1861.  On  De- 
cember 30  of  the  same  year,  in  common  with  all  banks  in 
Boston  and  vicinity,  this  bank  suspended  specie  payment. 
April  28,  1864,  articles  of  association  as  First  National  Bank 
of  Cambridge  were  adopted,  and  the  bank  fully  organized  as  a 
national  bank  May  16,  1864.  On  May  24  it  was  appointed 
a  depository  and  financial  agent  of  the  United  States,  and  began 
business  under  this  new  organization  June  1, .  the  board  of 
directors  remaining  unchanged.  Circulating  notes  to  the  full 
amount  of  its  capital,  $200,000,  were  issued.  In  December, 
1875,  the  bank  removed  to  its  present  quarters  in  the  Grant 
Building.  In  November,  1882,  the  bank  and  the  community 
suffered  a  serious  loss  in  the  death  of  President  Tilton,  who  had 
been  identified  with  the  business  interests  of  the  city  through 
many  years,  and  had  won  a  deserved  reputation  for  sagacity. 

November  28,  1882,  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin  was  elected  pres- 
ident, and  on  February  24, 1893,  the  charter  as  a  national  bank 
was  extended  to  1903.  Since  beginning  business  in  1861  it 
has  paid  $640,000  in  dividends,  and  has  now  a  surplus  about 
equal  to  its  capital.  Mr.  Chamberlin,  the  president,  and  Mr. 
W.  A.  BuUard,  the  cashier,  are,  with  one  exception,  the  only 
persons  living  who  were  actively  connected  with  the  administra- 
tion of  its  affairs  when  the  bank  was  organized,  they  having 
served  continuously  for  thirty-five  years.  The  present  board 
of  directors  consists  of  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  Henry  Endicott, 


SAFE  DEPOSIT  COMPANY.  307 

Henry  N.  Tilton,  Dana  W.  Hyde,  Erasmus  D.  Leavitt,  and 
W.  W.  DaUinger. 

The  Cambridge  National  Bank,  located  at  No.  221  Cam- 
bridge Street,  East  Cambridge,  was  organized  in  June,  1864, 
through  the  efforts  of  Daniel  R.  Sortwell,  who  at  that  time  had 
just  moved  into  Ward  Three  from  Somerville.  The  first  board 
of  directors  consisted  of  Daniel  R.  Sortwell,  Joseph  H.  Tyler, 
John  N.  Meriam,  Charles  J.  Adams,  Thomas  Cunningham, 
Israel  Tibbetts,  and  Joseph  A.  Wellington.  Daniel  R.  Sortwell 
was  elected  president,  and  John  C.  Bullard  cashier.  The  bank 
opened  for  business  August  1,  1864. 

The  board,  as  first  elected,  served  without  a  break  until 
1874 :  John  C.  Bullard  was  elected  in  1875  to  succeed  John 
N.  Meriam  ;  Alvin  F.  Sortwell,  elected  in  1878  to  succeed  Israel 
Tibbetts ;  Gustavus  Goepper,  elected  in  1887  to  succeed  Charles 
J.  Adams  ;  Charles  J.  Adams,  elected  in  1889  to  succeed  Joseph 
A.  Wellington  ;  George  E.  Carter,  elected  in  1895  to  succeed 
Daniel  R.  Sortwell. 

In  1893  the  Articles  of  Association  were  amended,  reducing 
the  number  of  directors  to  five. 

Daniel  R.  Sortwell  died  on  October  4,  1894,  and  the  office 
of  president  was  not  filled  until  the  annual  election  in  Jan- 
uary, 1895,  when  Alvin  F.  Sortwell  was  elected  to  succeed  him. 
The  present  board  of  directors  consists  of  John  C.  Bullard, 
George  E.  Carter,  Thomas  Cunningham,  Gustavus  Goepper, 
and  Alvin  F.  Sortwell.  Mr.  Bullard  has  held  the  office  of 
cashier  since  the  organization  of  the  bank,  and  is  now  serving 
his  thirty-second  year  in  that  position.  The  deposits  vary  from 
1280,000  to  $870,000,  and  the  surplus  and  undivided  profits 
are  $41,030.30.  The  bank  discounts  consist  almost  altogether 
of  local  paper,  and  it  is  seldom  obliged  to  buy  notes  of  out-of- 
town  parties. 

Cambridge  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company.  —  A 
special  charter  for  this  company  was  granted  by  the  legisla- 
ture of  1890,  and  the  Cambridge  Safety  Deposit  Vaults  Com- 
pany, with  a  capital  of  120,000,  was  organized  under  the 
general  law  in  January,  1890,  by  Messrs.  William  R.  Ellis, 
Richard  H.  Dana,  James  W.  Brine,  J.  Rayner  Edmands,  and 
Woodward  Emery;  the  stock  was  wholly  taken  by  residents 
of  Cambridge.  The  company  leased  the  two  stores  and  base- 
ment in  Hilton  Block,  numbered  1298  and  1300  Massachusetts 


808  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Avenue,  its  present  location,  and  made  a  contract  for  the  most 
approved  vault  and  lock  work  with  the  Damon  Safe  Company. 

The  board  of  directors  consisted  of  Messrs.  James  W.  Brine, 
Richard  H.  Dana,  J.  Rayner  Edmands,  William  R.  Ellis, 
Moses  G.  Howe,  Joseph  B.  Russell,  and  Henry  White.  Joseph 
B.  Russell  was  elected  president,  and  John  H.  Hubbard  treas- 
urer; Edmund  M.  Parker,  John  H.  Hubbard,  and  Alvin  F. 
Sortwell  were  elected  to  the  board  of  directors  February  24, 
1891. 

President  Russell  resigned  on  January  20,  1891,  and  Alvin 
F.  Sortwell  was  elected  to  the  position,  and  held  the  same  until 
the  company  closed  up  its  affairs  and  transferred  its  plant  to 
the  trust  company. 

In  the  summer  of  1892  Henry  White,  Daniel  R.  and  Alvin 
F.  Sortwell  started  a  subscription  to  raise  f  100,000  for  the  pur- 
pose of  using  the  charter  for  the  trust  company,  granted  in 
1890.  The  stock  was  quickly  taken,  largely  by  residents  of 
Cambridge,  and  the  company  was  organized  and  opened  for 
business  in  November,  1892.  Alvin  F.  Sortwell  was  elected 
president  during  organization.  The  trust  company  bought  out 
the  Cambridge  Safety  Vaults  Company,  taking  their  vaults  and 
fixtures,  and  the  lease  of  the  banking-room. 

On  account  of  the  pressure  of  other  interests  President  Sort- 
well  resigned  before  the  company  opened  for  business.  Mr. 
Henry  White  was  elected  president ;  Joseph  B.  Russell,  vice- 
president  ;  and  Louis  W.  Cutting,  treasurer,  on  September  20, 
1892.  The  board  of  directors  consisted  of  J.  Q.  Bennett,  O.  H. 
Durrell,  J.  M.  W.  Hall,  Gardiner  M.  Lane,  William  Taggard 
Piper,  Alvin  F.  Sortwell,  E.  D.  Leavitt,  Nathaniel  C.  Nash, 
Joseph  B.  Russell,  Moses  W^illiams,  and  Henry  White. 

President  White  resigned  in  June,  1894,  on  account  of  ab- 
sence in  Europe,  and  Joseph  B.  Russell  was  elected  in  his 
place,  and  Alvin  F.  Sortwell  was  elected  vice-president.  The 
changes  in  board  of  directors  have  been  as  follows :  William 
J.  Underwood  in  place  of  J.  M.  W.  Hall,  resigned;  J.  H. 
Hubbard  in  place  of  O.  H.  Durrell,  resigned ;  H.  O.  Under- 
wood in  place  of  William  J.  Underwood,  resigned ;  and  William 
E.  Russell  and  Herbert  H.  White  added  to  the  number. 

The  total  deposits  now  average  over  half  a  million  of  dollars. 
Semi-annual  dividends  have  been  paid  since  1894,  and  a  surplus 
of  over  $15,000  accumulated.     The  silver  vaults  and  safety 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  SAVINGS  BANK.  309 

boxes  in  charge  of  Franklin  Perrin,  manager,  are  a  feature  of 
the  institution,  and  are  a  great  convenience  to  the  citizens  of 
Cambridge,  as  is  indicated  by  their  increased  patronage.  In  its 
three  years'  existence,  the  deposits  have  shown  a  steady  and 
natural  increase,  and  that,  too,  without  drawing  from  the  excel- 
lent national  banks.  The  business  comes  from  residents  of 
Cambridge  who  have  heretofore  done  their  banking  and  had 
safety  boxes  in  Boston,  together  with  patrons  drawn  from 
Arlington,  Watertown,  Somerville,  and  other  adjoining  cities 
and  towns.     Interest  is  credited  on  daily  balances. 

The  Cambridge  Savings  Bank  was  incorporated  April  2, 
1834,  under  the  name  of  the  "  Savings  Institution  in  the  Town 
of  Cambridge,"  and  bore  that  name  until  March  14, 1868,  when 
by  act  of  the  legislature  it  took  its  present  name.  Previous 
to  the  time  of  its  incorporation  there  were  but  nineteen  institu- 
tions of  the  kind  in  the  State.  The  original  incorporators  were 
William  J.  Whipple,  William  Hilliard,  and  Levi  Farwell,  and 
at  a  meeting  of  these  gentlemen  held  in  Mr.  Hilliard's  office  on 
the  southerly  side  of  Brighton  (now  Boylston)  Street,  October 
27,  1834,  their  number  was  increased  to  nine  by  electing  Eliab 
W.  Metcalf,  Abel  Willard,  William  Watriss,  William  Brown, 
John  B.  Dana,  and  Charles  C.  Little.  At  a  meeting  held  No- 
vember 17,  1834,  at  the  Charles  River  Bank,  forty-four  more 
were  added  to  the  number,  making  fifty-three  in  all.  The  first 
choice  for  president  of  this  time-honored  institution  was  no  less 
a  personage  than  Judge  Joseph  Story,  who  was  elected  Novem- 
ber 24,  1834,  but  his  resignation  was  read  at  the  next  meet- 
ing, December  19,  1834,  so  that  he  never  presided  at  any  of  its 
deliberations. 

The  first  active  president  was  Asahel  Stearns,  elected  Janu- 
ary 5,  1835.  The  first  vice-presidents  were  Simon  Greenleaf, 
Samuel  King,  Charles  Everett,  and  Sidney  Willard,  who  were 
elected  November  24,  1834.  The  first  board  of  trustees  were 
the  above-named  president  and  vice-presidents,  John  Chamber- 
lin,  Eliab  W.  Metcalf,  Anson  Hooker,  Joseph  N.  Howe,  Jr., 
William  Fiske,  Robert  Fuller,  Edward  Brown,  Jr.,  Levi  Far- 
weU,  Charles  C.  Little,  Ralph  Smith,  William  J.  Whipple,  and 
Jacob  N.  Bates.  The  first  election  of  a  clerk  or  secretary 
occurred  at  the  meeting  of  November  24,  1834,  and  Mr.  John 
B.  Dana  was  chosen.  The  first  auditors  were  Charles  C.  Little, 
William  J.  Whipple,  and  Samuel  King,  who  were  elected  Jan- 


310  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

uary  2,  1835,  and  the  first  board  of  investment  was  chosen  at 
the  same  meeting,  the  members  of  which  were  Levi  Farwell, 
Ralph  Smith,  Eliab  W.  Metcalf,  Charles  Everett,  Charles  C. 
Little,  Joseph  N.  Howe,  Jr.,  and  Sidney  Willard.  The  first 
treasurer  was  James  Hayward,  chosen  December  19,  1834. 
The  bank  evidently  began  business  in  Mr.  Hilliard's  ofiice,  for 
a  committee  reported  January  19, 1835,  "  that  the  treasurer  can 
be  accommodated  with  an  office  in  the  room  occupied  by  Wil- 
liam HiUiard  for  a  sum  not  exceeding  five  dollars  per  quarter," 
and  at  the  same  meeting,  which  was  held  at  the  Charles  River 
Bank,  it  was  voted  "  that  the  treasurer  be  authorized  to  furnish 
the  said  office  with  such  furniture,  etc.,  as  he  may  think  neces- 
sary." Its  first  deposit  was  ten  dollars,  received  from  Mehitable 
Holbrook,  January  24,  1835.  The  bank  appears  to  have  been 
of  pecuniary  help  to  its  depositors  from  the  start,  as  Mr.  Hay- 
ward's  first  report,  made  July  23,  1835,  when  the  institution 
was  six  months  old,  shows  that  a  dividend  was  made  of  twenty- 
eight  dollars  and  twelve  cents,  and  that  the  rate  was  four  per 
cent.  The  amount  then  due  depositors  was  $5896.  The 
amount  deposited  in  the  bank  during  the  year  ending  the  fourth 
Thursday  of  January,  1846,  was  $22,424.85  ;  for  the  year  ending 
the  fourth  Thursday  of  January,  1856,  $48,192.30 ;  the  same 
date  in  1866,  $186,887.67;  in  1876,  $420,184.91;  in  1886, 
$428,046.90 ;  and  in  the  year  ending  the  fourth  Thursday  of 
January,  1896,  $602,409.03.  The  amount  due  depositors  on 
the  last-named  date  was  $3,455,769.62. 

Mr.  John  B.  Dana  was  a  constant  worker  for  the  interests  of 
the  bank,  from  the  date  of  his  election  to  the  position  of  secre- 
tary to  his  decease,  March  16,  1878.  He  acted  in  that  capacity 
for  six  years,  and  was  president  for  the  same  length  of  time. 
He  was  treasurer  sixteen  years,  and  trustee  twenty-three  years. 
James  H.  Wyeth,  who  is  now  in  active  service,  has  served  the 
bank  as  auditor  twenty  years,  and  has  been  secretary  and  trus- 
tee for  thirty-two  years.  But  the  most  remarkable  term  of  ser- 
vice in  the  history  of  the  bank  has  been  that  of  Mr.  Andrew  S. 
Waitt,  whose  chair  has  hardly  ever  been  vacant  at  any  meet- 
ing of  the  corporation  board  of  trustees,  or  board  of  investment, 
for  a  period  of  forty  years.  The  value  of  his  services  to  the 
bank  and  community  cannot  easily  be  estimated. 

The  names  of  the  presidents  and  treasurers  who  have  served 
the  bank,  with  dates  of  election,  are  here  given.     Presidents : 


NORTH  AVENUE  SAVINGS  BANK.  311 

Asahel  Stearns,  elected  January  5,  1835  ;  Levi  Farwell,  elected 
December  10,  1838 ;  Simon  Greenleaf,  elected  January  22, 
1845;  Sidney  Willard,  elected  January  24,  1849;  Jacob  H. 
Bates,  elected  January  21,  1852 ;  Charles  C.  Little,  elected 
January  25, 1854 ;  Dr.  Charles  Beck,  elected  February  8, 1860 ; 
Stephen  T.  Farwell,  elected  April  9,  1866 ;  John  B.  Dana, 
elected  February  14,  1872 ;  Charles  W.  Sever,  elected  March 
16, 1878.  Treasurers :  James  Hayward,  elected  December  19, 
1834 ;  John  Owen,  elected  November  23, 1835  ;  John  B.  Dana, 
elected  January  27,  1841  ;  William  L.  Whitney,  elected  Janu- 
ary 21,  1857 ;  Eben  Snow,  elected  November  19,  1866 ;  James 
M.  Thurston,  elected  March  14,  1873 ;  Oscar  F.  Allen,  elected 
December  26,  1884.  Clerk:  James  H.  Wyeth,  elected  Feb- 
ruary 9,  1864. 

Cambridgeport  Savings  Bank  was  incorporated  in  1853 
by  Thaddeus  B.  Bigelow,  Benjamin  Tilton,  George  C.  Richard- 
son, Robert  Douglas,  Charles  Wood,  Thomas  Whittemore,  John 
Sargent,  George  W.  Livermore,  Edward  Hyde,  Jeremiah 
Wetherbee,  Lucius  R.  Paige,  William  Greenough,  John  M. 
St.  Clair,  and  Aaron  Rice.  The  bank  has  been  successful  from 
its  start ;  its  deposits,  January  13,  1896,  were  $3,857,575.49 ; 
the  number  of  corporators,  23 ;  number  of  depositors,  12,164. 
Its  officers  are  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  president;  Lucius  R. 
Paige,  Asa  P.  Morse,  and  Henry  Endicott,  vice-presidents; 
Henry  W^.  Bidlard,  treasurer. 

North  Avenue  Savings  Bank  was  incorporated  March 
2,  1872,  and  organized  March  7,  1872,  with  the  choice  of  Sam- 
uel F.  Woodbridge,  president ;  William  Fox  Richardson,  Jonas 
C.  Wellington,  Cornelius  Dorr,  and  Chandler  R.  Ranson,  vice- 
presidents;  George  W.  Parke,  secretary.  Its  first  board  of 
trustees  were  Chester  W.  Kingsley,  Warren  Sanger,  Daniel  W. 
Shaw,  Person  Davis,  John  J.  Henderson,  Daniel  Fobes,  Henry 
C.  Rand,  Horatio  Locke,  John  Davis,  David  Ellis,  Levi  L. 
Cushing,  and  James  H.  Collins.  At  the  meeting  of  the  trustees 
held  July  8,  1872,  Milton  L.  Walton  was  chosen  treasurer. 
The  growth  of  the  bank  was  necessarily  slow,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  business  was  begun  the  year  of  the  great  Boston  fire,  and 
that  the  bank  was  located  some  distance  away  from  the  indus- 
trial centre  of  the  city.  On  January  10,  1896,  the  deposits 
were  $503,899.52,  and  there  were  2291  depositors.  The  pres- 
ent officers  are:  Samuel  F.  Woodbridge,  president;  William 


312  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Fox  Richardson,  Cornelius  Dorr,  Charles  F.  Stratton,  vice- 
presidents  ;  Milton  L.  Walton,  treasurer. 

East  Cambridge  Savings  Bank  was  incorporated  April  29, 
1854.  The  charter  members  of  the  corporation  were  Frederic 
W.  Holland,  Joseph  Whitney,  George  Stevens,  William  Par- 
menter,  John  S.  Ladd,  Caleb  Hayden,  Ephraim  Buttrick, 
Lewis  Hall,  Lorenzo  Marrett,  Norman  S.  Cate,  Charles  B. 
Stevens,  Samuel  Slocomb,  and  Anson  Hooker. 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  corporation  the  following  board  of 
officers  was  chosen :  president,  Frederic  W.  Holland ;  vice- 
presidents,  George  Stevens,  Jesse  Hall,  and  John  Taylor ;  secre- 
tary, Ezra  Ripley ;  trustees,  Samuel  Slocomb,  Lewis  Hall, 
Norman  S.  Cate,  Anson  Hooker,  Lorenzo  Marrett,  Thomas 
Hastings,  Silas  B.  Buck,  William  Wyman,  Ezra  Ripley,  H.  N. 
Hovey,  J.  S.  Ladd,  George  Fifield. 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  trustees,  John  Savage,  Jr.,  was 
elected  treasurer,  and  on  May  20,  1854,  the  bank  was  opened 
for  business  in  the  banking-rooms  of  the  Lechmere  Bank.  Mr. 
Holland  continued  as  president  till  his  removal  from  the  State 
in  1859,  when  George  Stevens  succeeded  him  and  served  as 
president  until  his  death  in  1894,  when  John  C.  BuUard  was 
chosen. 

Mr,  Savage,  the  first  treasurer,  served  in  that  capacity  until 
1873,  when  Samuel  Slocomb  was  chosen,  who  continued  in  office 
until  his  death  in  1887.  Miss  Mary  Lowell  Stone,  the  assistant 
of  Mr.  Slocomb,  succeeded  him,  and  served  until  her  death  in 
1889,  Mr.  William  E.  Lloyd  being  then  elected.  Among  those 
who  have  served  as  trustees  of  the  bank  appear  the  names  of 
Moses  Clarke,  Knowlton  S.  Chaffee,  Joseph  H.  Tyler,  Isaac  F. 
Jones,  John  H.  Leighton,  William  Hunnewell,  John  Conlan, 
Edward  W.  Bettinson,  Thomas  S.  Hudson,  John  M.  Tyler, 
Daniel  R.  Sortwell,  Israel  Tibbetts,  and  Enos  Reed. 

The  present  board  of  officers  is  :  president,  John  C.  BuUard ; 
vice-presidents,  Lewis  Hall,  Silas  B.  Buck,  and  Alvin  F.  Sort- 
well  ;  treasurer  and  secretary,  William  E.  Lloyd ;  trustees, 
James  M.  Price,  Andrew  J.  Green,  Benjamin  F.  Thompson, 
Gustavus  Goepper,  John  McSorley,  William  Goepper,  James 
G.  Ferguson,  Frank  H.  Marshall,  M.  J.  Harty,  Edward  H. 
Thompson,  David  Proudfoot,  William  R.  Adams. 

From  its  incorporation  until  the  year  1873  the  bank  occupied 
the  rooms  of  the  Lechmere  Bank.     At  that  time  the  estate  on 


ADVANTAGES  FOR  MANUFACTURING.  313 

Cambridge  Street  formerly  occupied  by  Dr.  Anson  Hooker  was 
purchased,  and  a  banking-room  fitted  up  on  the  lower  floor. 
Here  the  bank  continued  until  the  taking  of  the  land  by  the 
county  of  Middlesex  in  1895  compelled  a  removal.  Land  on 
the  south  side  of  Cambridge  Street,  midway  between  Third  and 
Fourth  streets  (numbered  at  present  292),  was  purchased,  and  a 
buildinsr  erected  for  the  exclusive  use  of  the  bank.  It  is  a  one- 
story  structure  of  stone,  brick,  and  iron,  as  nearly  fireproof  as 
is  possible.  Never  in  its  history  has  the  bank  failed  to  pay  its 
depositors  principal  and  interest,  and  always  a  high  rate  of 
interest,  being  one  of  the  thirteen  banks  in  the  State  which 
last  year  paid  four  and  one  half  per  cent.  The  amount  of  the 
total  deposit  at  present  is  $2,271,977.91,  an  increase  of  $622,000 
in  five  years.  It  has  a  large  surplus  —  being  in  amount  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  total  deposits,  and  as  large  in  proportion  as  that  of 
any  other  bank  in  the  State. 

MANUFACTURES. 

Cambridge,  in  the  possession  of  her  great  university,  has  a 
world-wide  reputation,  yet  her  manufacturing  interests  have  so 
largely  increased,  and  have  become  of  such  importance,  that  she 
has  gained  another  distinction,  that  of  being  a  great  manufac- 
turing centre. 

Among  the  conditions  that  govern  a  manufacturer  in  select- 
ing a  place  to  establish  business  are  favorable  location,  low 
price  of  land  and  convenience  to  railroads,  a  market  for  labor, 
and  a  fair  tax  rate.  He  seeks  also  pure  water  and  an  abun- 
dant supply,  educational  facilities,  and  proper  surroundings  for 
the  home  life  of  his  employees.  Cambridge  is  unsurpassed  in 
all  of  these  respects  by  any  other  place  in  the  vicinity  of 
Boston. 

The  Boston  &  Albany  Railroad  passes  through  the  manu- 
facturing district  of  Cambridge,  and  affords  quick  connection 
with  all  the  other  railroads  centring  in  Boston.  The  advan- 
tage of  tide-water  so  near  at  hand,  and  the  cheapest  possible 
water  freights  for  coal  and  raw  materials  and  for  the  delivery 
of  manufactured  products  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  add  to  the 
attractions  offered  in  Cambridsre  to  sfreat  manufacturing:  in- 
dustries. 

Upwards  of  five  million  square  feet  of  land  available  for 
manufacturing  purposes,  situated  in  the  midst  of   large  and 


314  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

flourishing  industries  already  established,  are  still  to  be  occu- 
pied. This  territory  is  distant  less  than  one  mile  from  the 
State  House  in  Boston,  and  it  can  be  purchased  for  a  lower 
figure  than  that  quoted  for  desirable  locations  in  either  East 
Boston,  South  Boston,  or  Charlestown. 

Woodward  Emery,  Esq.,  chairman  of  the  Massachusetts 
Harbor  and  Land  Commission,  referring  to  this  section  of 
Cambridge,  says  :  — 

"  The  East  Cambridge  Land  Co.  was  established  under  a 
charter  from  the  Commonwealth  more  than  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago,  for  the  purpose  of  improving  the  vacant  marsh  lands 
in  East  Cambridge  lying  between  Third  and  Portland  streets. 
Broad,  Canal,  and  Charles  streets,  and  including  about  three 
million  square  feet  of  land.  It  was  organized  by  Gardiner  G. 
Hubbard,  who  may  fairly  be  called  the  father  of  three  great 
enterprises  which  have  greatly  benefited  the  city,  to  wit  :  the 
horse  railroad,  the  gas  company,  and  the  water- works ;  the  late 
Estes  Howe,  a  name  associated  with  many  Cambridge  enter- 
prises of  public  interest  and  character ;  Charles  W.  Munroe, 
whose  father  owned  and  improved  a  considerable  amount  of 
real  estate  in  the  city ;  and  their  associates.  The  improvement 
of  this  property,  by  the  laying  out  and  building  of  streets, 
adapted  it  for  manufacturing  industries  and  mechanical  enter- 
prises. The  Grand  Junction  branch  runs  through  the  property 
from  north  to  south,  with  a  spur  track  to  the  eastward,  so 
located  as  to  offer  ready  facilities  to  works  which  may  become 
established  upon  its  line.  Since  the  development  of  this  prop- 
erty, the  company  has  sold  more  than  two  million  feet  of  its 
land.  The  George  F.  Blake  Manufacturing  Co.,  The  Boston 
Bridge  Co.,  The  Boston  Woven  Hose  Co.,  The  American  Rub- 
ber Co.,  and  others,  have  purchased,  erected  plants,  and  estab- 
lished large  businesses  in  these  lands.  Many  of  these  manufac- 
turing plants  were  located  in  this  locality  after  a  thorough 
examination  and  exhaustive  study ;  as  the  proprietor  of  one  of 
them  said:  '  Of  the  suburbs  of  Boston  beginning  at  East  Boston, 
and  following  the  Boston  and  Albany  Railroad  through  East 
Boston,  Chelsea,  Everett,  Charlestown,  Somerville,  and  Cam- 
bridge, and  examining  all  vacant  lands  on  railroads  entering 
Boston  not  too  remote  for  our  purpose,  the  result  of  this  careful 
examination  was  the  choice  of  the  present  location  of  the  works. 
The  price  was  found  very  reasonable  compared  with  any  other 


A   PROBLEM  SOLVED.  815 

land  so  near  Boston.  We  have  at  times  made  three  round 
trips  daily  to  different  parts  of  Boston  with  heavily  loaded 
teams.  We  have  never  regretted  our  choice  of  location,  and 
believe  that  the  steady  and  large  gi'owth  of  the  business  has 
been  in  no  small  degree  due  to  the  advantages  of  our  situation. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  quite  understand  why  those  seeking 
choice  situations  for  manufacturing  plants  have  so  far  over- 
looked the  exceptional  advantages  offered  by  this  and  other 
regions  in  Cambridge,  unless  it  is  due  to  the  lack  of  proper 
public  information.' 

"  The  foregoing  testimony  from  one  of  the  early  settlers  on 
these  lands  bears  witness  to  the  great  advantages  of  locating  in 
Cambridge  industries  of  a  kind  for  which  its  territory  is  so  well 
adapted." 

Cambridge  has  a  population  of  intelligent  operatives,  and  its 
nearness  to  the  labor-market  of  the  great  city  of  Boston  relieves 
the  manufacturer  of  the  problem  where  to  obtain  skilled  labor, 
—  a  problem  that  in  many  places  is  a  difficult  one  to  solve. 

Within  the  manufacturing  district,  and  along  the  banks  of 
the  Charles  River,  Cambridge  is  building  a  system  of  parks, 
conveniently  located  and  surrounding  its  entire  territory.  The 
workmen  in  the  factories  and  the  toilers  in  the  shops  thus  have 
places  easy  of  access,  where  throughout  the  hot  summer  months 
they  can  find  green  lawns,  trees,  sunlight,  and  fresh  air,  the 
necessary  and  welcome  relief  from  the  dusty  streets  and  crowded 
tenements  of  a  city.  Every  manufacturer  will  at  once  appre- 
ciate the  effect  of  such  parks  upon  the  health,  happiness,  and 
morality  of  employees. 

Commercial  Avenue,  which  the  Park  Department  is  now 
constructing,  will  connect  Main  Street  with  Bridge  Street  and 
Prison  Point  Street,  Charlestown.  It  will  border  the  East 
Cambridge  Embankment  Park,  which  is  to  be  finished  from 
plans  similar  to  those  used  for  the  Charlesbank  on  the  Boston 
side.  Along  this  avenue  and  facing  the  park  will  be  found 
most  admirable  sites  for  the  location  of  model  apartment  houses 
and  homes  for  the  workman  and  mechanic. 

The  educational  facilities  of  Cambridge,  its  libraries  and 
other  institutions  free  to  all,  are  fully  described  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters.  They  commend  themselves  to  all  manufacturers, 
for  the  greater  the  advantages  given  to  their  employees,  the 
better  will  business  interests  be  served. 


316  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

The  Prospect  Union  is  an  institution  that  appeals  directly 
to  the  wage-earner.  It  is  located  in  the  "  old  "  city  hall  on 
Massachusetts  Avenue.  This  institution  is  peculiar  to  Cam- 
bridge, and  is  made  possible  by  the  cooperation  of  professors, 
teachers,  and  students  from  Harvard  University,  who  give  their 
time  freely  and  without  pay  to  its  work.  Its  president  shows 
fully  and  clearly  in  his  paper  in  another  part  of  this  volume 
the  value  of  the  work  to  the  wage-earner,  and  hence  to  the 
employer  and  to  the  city. 

Another  consideration  that  must  have  great  influence  in  de- 
ciding a  manufacturer  to  locate  his  business  in  Cambridge  is 
the  absence  of  the  saloon.  For  ten  years  the  people  at  the 
annual  municipal  elections  have  voted  in  favor  of  no  license, 
and  the  effect  upon  the  city  is  shown  in  many  ways.  Especially 
is  there  a  marked  decrease  in  the  business  of  the  police  courts, 
and  the  large  increase  in  the  deposits  in  the  savings  banks, 
these  deposits  having  increased  from  $6,136,257  in  1885  to 
$10,089,222  in  1896. 

In  fire  protection  the  department  under  Chief  Casey  is  one  of 
the  most  efficient  in  the  State.  It  numbers  forty-three  perma- 
nent and  eighty-eight  call  men,  and  has  in  service  seven  steam 
fire-engines,  with  five  hose  wagons  and  two  hose  carriages, 
two  chemical  engines,  two  hook-and-ladder  trucks,  one  aerial 
truck,  and  twenty  chemical  extinguishers.  Eight  hundred 
and  sixty-seven  hydrants  are  available  for  fire  purposes.  It 
has  also  reserve  or  spare  apparatus  composed  of  one  steam  fire- 
engine,  two  hose  carriages,  and  one  ladder  truck.  The  appro- 
priation for  the  maintenance  of  the  department  for  1896  is 
$85,500. 

Cambridge  has  a  competent  police  force,  consisting  of  a  chief, 
three  captains,  one  inspector,  eight  sergeants,  and  eighty-two 
patrolmen.  Two  sergeants  and  twenty-two  patrolmen  are  on 
duty  in  the  daytime,  and  six  sergeants  and  sixty  patrolmen 
during  the  night-time.  The  appropriation  for  the  police  de- 
partment for  1896  is  $112,000. 

Cambridge  is  fortunate  in  the  possession  of  an  independent 
water  supply  of  pure  water.  The  natural  daily  yield  of  Fresh 
Pond  is  about  1,000,000  gallons,  the  maximum  supply  of  water 
which  can  be  furnished  through  the  thirty-inch  main  from 
Stony  Brook  basin  is  8,000,000  gallons  per  day.  The  con- 
sumption of  water  in  1895  averaged  almost   6,000,000  gallons 


FIRE  INSURANCE.  317 

per  day.  Considering  the  average  annual  increase  in  the  use 
of  water  during  the  last  eight  years,  the  limit  of  the  present 
supply  will  not  be  reached  until  1901.  By  that  time  the  Hobbs' 
Brook  basin  will  be  completed,  and  the  storage  capacity  so 
enormously  increased  that  it  can  then  be  safely  stated  that 
Cambridge  will  have  sufficient  water  for  her  needs  for  the  next 
quarter  of  a  century.  The  water  board  has  ever  shown  rare 
judgment  and  marked  ability  in  managing  its  department. 

THE   CAMBRIDGE  MUTUAL   FIRE  INSURANCE   CO. 

This  company,  which  is  now  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  sub- 
stantial and  successful  financial  institutions  of  our  city,  had 
rather  a  precarious  existence  for  a  number  of  years  subsequent 
to  its  organization  in  1833.  It  was  established  by  some  of  the 
most  worthy  and  prominent  merchants  of  the  town ;  but  not 
having  had  experience  in  the  insurance  business,  they  found 
hard  work  to  keep  the  company  alive.  It  however  gave  its 
policy  holders  indemnity  for  loss  through  the  various  years 
until  1850,  by  successive  a,ssessmehts,  when  new  methods  were 
adopted,  and  it  gradually  became  stronger  until  the  Boston  fire 
of  1872  reduced  its  assets  to  about  f50,000,  with  nearly 
15,000,000  at  risk. 

During  this  time  the  company  had  long  been  under  the  presi- 
dency of  the  late  Josiah  W.  Cook,  with  H.  M.  Chamberlain, 
Abram  Lansing,  Henry  Thayer,  and  J.  A.  Smith  as  secretaries. 
In  1873  a  change  was  made ;  Mr.  Cook  becoming  aged  and 
feeble,  the  management  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Alfred  L. 
Barbour  as  secretary,  —  a  Cambridge  young  man  who  had  been 
educated  in  the  public  schools  of  our  city,  and  who  with  an 
able  board  of  directors  has  managed  it  ever  since.  Upon  the 
death  of  Mr.  Cook,  Dana  W.  Hyde  was  elected  president,  and 
the  company  has  increased  its  assets  from  i50,000  to  nearly 
$240,000,  owning  its  present  fine  building  next  to  the  city 
hall,  and  about  $150,000  invested  in  good  securities.  The 
company  stands  now  among  the  best  of  the  mutuals  of  the 
State. 


318 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


Water  is  supplied  to  manufacturers  at  low  rates,  as  is  shown 
in  the  following 

Table  of  comparative  water  rates  in  twelve  cities. 


rAMILli 

BATES. 

METEB 

BATES. 

*5 

i 

1 

s?"s" 

1 

4J 

•3 

/i 

*i 

i 

I 

•3 

U 

1 

1 

u 

g 

•c 

1 

ill 

11. 

O 

'-13 

1 

1 
1 

S3.00 

1 

•< 

i 

1 

3 

CO 

Cambridge,  Mass. 

$4.00 

$2.00 

$5.00 

$3.00 

$2.00 

$5.00 

$20.00 

IJc.      2c.       3c.       Ic. 

Fall  River. 

5.00 

ii.bO 

5.00 

5.00 

4.00 

3.00 

6.00 

30.50 

3c.  for  all  purposes. 

Fitchburg. 

6.00 

'2.00 

4.50 

5.00 

3.00 

3.00 

5.00 

28.50 

3^0.  for  all  purposes. 

Lowell. 

6.00 

ave. 
3.00 

ave. 
3.00 

1.00 

2.00 

3.00 

No 
limit 

Varies  from  year  to  year. 

Lynn. 

5.00 

1.00 

3.00 

3.00 

2.00 

2.00 

4.00 

24.00 

2c.  for  all  purposes. 

Bpringfield. 

8.00 

C.OO 

4.00 

4.00 

2.00 

2.00 

5.00 

31.00 

3c.  for  all  purposes. 

Worcester. 

6.00 

5.00 

4.00 

2.00 

2.00 

5.00 

24.00 

2Jc.  for  aU  purposes. 

Hartford,  Conn. 

6.00 

1.00 

3.00 

1.00 

3.00 

No 
limit 

2c.  for  all  purposes. 

Providence,  R.  I. 

6.00 

2.00 

5.00 

5.00 

3.00 

3.00 

5.00 

40.00 

2Jc.  average  rate. 

Manchester,  N.  H. 

5.00 

1.00 

2.50 

1.25 

2.50 

1.25 

5.00 

No 

2c. 

Portland,  Me. 

10.00 

5.00 

6.00 

2.50 

3.00 

5.00 

40.00 

_         _         _         _ 

Erie,  Pa. 

6.00 

1.50 

3.00 

3.00 

1.00 

1.50 

5.00 

No 
limit 

Ic.  average  rate. 

COMPARATIVE   FIGURES. 


319 


The  valuation  of  Cambridge  and  its  assets  and  liabilities  are 
also  of  interest  in  connection  with  this  chapter  on  manufac- 
turing. 

Statement  of  the  valuations  of  the  'personal  property  and  real 
estate  of  the  City  of  Cambridge^  with  the  number  of  polls, 
dwellings,  and  rate  of  taxation  for  the  past  ten  years:  — 


Year. 

PoUs. 

PeraonaL 

Real  Estate. 

Total. 

Dwellings. 

Rate  per 
$1000. 

1886 

16,534i 

$14,490,470 

$44,955,200 

$59,445,670 

9,398 

$15.00 

1887 

17,139i 

13,358,910 

46,344,700 

59,703,610 

9,761 

16.00 

1888 

18,086| 

14,296,740 

48,420,600 

62,717,340 

9,927 

15.00 

1889 

18,307| 

14,960,100 

50,324,175 

65,284,275 

10,222 

16.00 

1890 

19,2211 

15,.S39,925 

52,235,000 

67,574,925 

10,615 

15.60 

1891 

20,73U 
22,013j 

16,508,770 

54,167,914 

70,676,684 

10,932 

15.. 50 

1892 

17,687,595 

56,668,100 

74,355,695 

11,.359 

16.00 

1893 

22,752 

17,511,089 

58,782,900 

76,293,989 

11,768 

16.40 

1894 

22,172 

16,658,320 

60,877,300 

77,535,620 

12,262 

15.80 

1895 

22,781 

16,607,360 

64,303,700 

80,911,060 

12,305 

15.70 

Comparative  statement  by  decades  from  1855  to  1895. 


1866. 

1866. 

1875. 

1886. 

1895. 

Population  .     .     . 

20,637 

29,112 

47,838 

59,660 

81,519 

Valuation    .     .     . 

S15,437,100.00 

$26,085,900.00 

$66,623,014.00 

$55,346,555.00 

$80,911,060.00 

City  Tax      .     .     . 

100,604.53 

267,708.60 

1,060,396.52 

804,800.00 

1,103,455.30 

County  Tax      .    . 

10,137.78 

18,280.99 

37,580.73 

29,381.54 

73,887.84 

State  Tax    .    .     . 

5,190.00 

118,487.00 

58,880.00 

44,835.00 

46,800.00 

Tax    rate    per 

$1000     .     .     .     . 

7.10 

15.00 

17.00 

15.50 

15.70 

Total  Expendi- 

tures     .... 

173,533.58 

536,911.82 

2,605,267.74 

2,354,298.69 

3,686,702.54 

City  Debt    .     .     . 

146,600.00 

833,092.00 

4,106,843.21 

2,361,396.50 

3,913,634.23 

Expenditures     by 

Departments :  — 

Bridges    .     .     . 

890.31 

9,007.77 

39,068.39 

11,829.77 

16,297.33 

Cemeteries   .     . 

6,.'553.67 

16,742.29 

19,438.66 

80,399.22 

16,999.40 

Fire  Dept.     .     . 

9,623.70 

21,958.74 

89,949.99 

59,341.15 

104,898.59 

Lighting  Streets 

2,987.32 

9,062.24 

20,919.04 

32,269.07 

69,926.61 

Pauper  Dept.     . 

8,520.41 

21,481.52 

79,719.54 

56,338.24 

100,841.33 

Police  Dept. 

4,499.56 

22,833.14 

71,093.35 

78,357.73 

110,784.22 

Public  Library  . 

1,111.77 

6,040.04 

6,643.51 

21,034.83 

Schools     .     .     . 

32,169.16 

81,842.47 

258,985.15 

227,511.77 

362,353.79 

Sewers     .    .     . 

4,610.68 

3,683.07 

135,432.28 

40,945.40 

149,459.89 

Streets     .     .     . 

14,554.73 

35,638.38 

15,5,476.90 

148,088.65 

2.52,154.62 

Water-Works    . 

20,327.79 

234,431.03 

485,691.04 

758,054.81 

320 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


Balance  Sheet  of  the  City  of  Cambridge,  December  1,  1895, 
showing  Assets  and  Liabilities. 


Cemetery  fund 

City  debt  (conting'ent) 

City  of  Cambridge  (city  property)     .     . 

City  treasury  (cash) 

Daniel  White  Cliarity  (trust  fund)     .     . 
Dowse  Institute  Fund  (trust  fund)     .     . 

Funded  city  debt 

Funded  water  debt 

Sanders  Temperance  Fund  (trust  fund) . 

Sinking  funds 

Sinking  fund  of  water-works    .     .     .     , 

Taxes  due  the  city 

Tax  liens 

Tax  sale  "  surplus  " 


Assets. 


$33,657.39 

3,552,188.88 
268,516.87 


511,816.53 

546,049.24 

267,320.13 

17,470.37 


$5,197,019.41 


Liabilities. 


$200,000.00 


5,000.00 

10,000.00 

2,756,000.00 

2,215,500.00 

10,000.00 


519.41 


$5,197,019.41 


The  following  is  a  schedule  of  property  used  for  religious, 
charitable,  and  educational  purposes,  and  exempt  from  taxation 
by  law,  not  including  that  owned  by  the  city  of  Cambridge,  as 
shown  on  the  assessors'  books  November  30,  1885  :  — 


Churches 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
Charitable  Institutions 
Cambridge  Hospital     . 
Longfellow  Memorial  Association 
County  buildings 
Harvard  University 
Rad cliff e  College 
Episcopal  Theological  School   . 
New-Church  Theological  School 
Catholic  Schools 
Cambridge  Social  Union 
Miscellaneous   .... 


81,522,700.00 

18,025.00 

258,006.01 

211,794.71 

62,442.14 

622,000.00 

8,740,848.00 

233,000.00 

368,840.41 

134,039.00 

300,400.00 

18,700.00 

34,400.00 


$12,525,195.27 


THE  FIBST  TYPICAL  RAILWAY  CAR.  321 

Mauufacturing-  in  Cambridge  in  the  early  part  of  the  present 
century  was  confined  principally  to  soap,  cordage,  and  leather. 
In  1828  a  young  man  named  Charles  Davenport,  then  but 
sixteen  years  of  age,  was  apprenticed  to  George  W.  Randall, 
of  Cambridgeport,  to  learn  the  woodwork  of  the  coach  and 
carriage  making  trade.  In  1832  Captain  E.  Kimball  and 
he  bought  Mr.  Randall  out,  and  he  started  for  himself  with 
two  journeymen  and  four  apprentices.  Captain  Kimball  was 
landlord  of  the  Pearl  Street  Hotel,  and,  in  connection  with  a 
livery  stable,  ran  a  coach  two  or  three  times  a  day  between 
Cambridge  and  Boston.  He  furnished  the  money.  Mr.  Daven- 
port thereafter  built  all  the  carriages  of  the  establishment.  In 
1833-84  the  firm  built  a  large  number  of  aU  kinds  of  vehicles^ 
including  sleighs,  and  the  first  omnibus  built  in  New  England. 
In  1834  they  took  the  contract  to  build  some  four-wheel  rail- 
way cars  for  the  Boston  &  Worcester  Railroad,  to  seat  twenty- 
four  people  ea«li.  They  were  the  first  ever  designed  with  a  pas- 
sageway running  from  end  to  end  between  the  seats. 

In  1836-37  he  built  for  the  Eastern  Raili'oad  twenty  four- 
wheel  cars  with  platforms  and  doors  on  the  ends  and  a  passage 
through  each  car.  His  shop  at  this  time  was  located  on  Main 
Street,  where  the  Morse  Building  now  stands.  The  firm  names 
of  Kimball  &  Davenport  and  Davenport  &  Bridges  will  long 
be  remembered  by  railroad  men.  Mr.  Davenport  was  the  first 
large  car-builder  in  the  United  States,  and  the  first  typical 
American  railway  passenger  car  was  built  in  Cambridge  from 
his  desisrn. 


322 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


The  following  table,  made  from  figures  obtained  from  Horace 
G.  Wadlin,  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  shows 
the  amount  of  manufacturing  in  Cambridge  in  decades  since 
1845.  A  fair  estimate  of  the  industrial  product  at  the  present 
time  would  place  the  amount  at  fully  $50,000,000, 

MANUFACTURES    IN    CAMBRIDGE      FOR     THE     YEAR 
ENDING  APRIL  1,   1845. 


Goods  Made. 

i 

Value. 

Capital 

it 

s  •■! 

Invested. 

g  3. 

S  JO 

-1 

tH  a 

Ice-cutters  or  ice-plows 

1 

$1,128 

$300 

2 

Latches  and  door-handles 

1 

1,500 

150 

4 

Glass 

3 

3:34,000 

362,000 

241 

Starch 

1 

8,450 

3,000 

4 

Chemical  preparations 

2 

20,250 

2,200 

9 

Musical  instruments 

1 

6,000 

2,500 

7 

Brushes 

3 

18,000 

4,300 

81 

Saddles,  harnesses,  and  trimks 

9 

10,630 

2,450 

16 

Upholstery 

1 

1,000 

200 

1 

Hats  and  caps 

4 

24,500 

7,700 

31 

Cordage 

4 

31,000 

3,600 

32 

Railroad  cars,  coaches,   and   other 

vehicles 

20 

208,000 

33,000 

127 

Soap  and  tallow  candles 

19 

358,-347 

191,100 

96 

Chairs  and  cabinet  ware 

4 

14,000 

3,.500 

19 

Tinware 

6 

10,800 

4,200 

13 

Leather 

6 

18,700 

5,100 

20 

Boots  and  shoes 

- 

45,596 

- 

91 

Brick 

- 

86,460 

- 

168 

Snuff,  tobacco,  and  cigars 

- 

47,000 

- 

67 

Whips 

- 

700 

- 

1 

Blacking 

- 

4,200 

- 

2 

Blocks  and  pumps 

- 

650 

- 

2 

Mechanics'  tools 

- 

2,000 

- 

4 

Fancy  and  shaving  soap 

- 

10,000 

3,000 

5 

Oil  bleached 

- 

95,000 

17,000 

10 

Pocketbooks 

- 

2,500 

500 

4 

Confectionery 

- 

29,400 

6,000 

18 

Earthenware 

- 

2,000 

300 

2 

Ladders 

- 

1,500 

200 

3 

Sashes,  blinds,  etc. 

- 

11,600 

2,600 

14 

Marble  monuments,  chimney-pieces, 

etc. 

- 

1,800 

1,000 

3 

Paper  hangings 

- 

10,500 

2,300 

16 

Astral  lamps 

- 

500 

100 

1 

Stoves 

- 

3,000 

2.000 

4 

Fringes  and  tassels 

- 

1.5,000 

2;ooo 

50 

Surgical  and  other  instruments 

- 

20,000 

10,000 

20 

Barrels 

- 

1.620 

400 

3 

Strong  beer 

- 

6,000 

1,000 

2 

Saws,  hatchets,  and  other  edge  tools 

1 

40,000 

25,000 

18 

MANUFACTURES  IN  CAMBRIDGE. 


323 


Goods  Hadb. 

II 

Value. 

Capital 
Invested. 

£  a 

Shovels,  spatles,  forks,  and  hoes 

Cards 

Firewood  prepared 

Woolen  and  cotton  stuffs,  silk  and 

cotton  handkerchiefs 
Dyewoods,  drugs,  and  spices 
Mahogany  turned  and  sawed 

2 

1 
3 

2 

2,000 

41,400 

450 

150,000 

418,800 

22,000 

$2,137,981 

1,000 
25,000 

15,000 
27,000 
10,000 

2 
7 
2 

20 
13 

14 

94 

$776,700 

1,269 

MANUFACTURES     IN    CAMBRIDGE     FOR 
ENDING  JUNE   1,   1855. 


THE    YEAR 


Goods  Made. 

o   1 

Value. 

Capital 

\% 

s  ~ 

Invested. 

g  ■g. 

&4  a 

Iron   railing,  iron  fences,  and  iron 

safes 

1 

$1,200 

$1,000 

4 

Britannia  ware 

1 

40,000 

25,000 

25 

Glass 

2 

620,000 

575,000 

531 

Starch 

1 

14,000 

4,000 

4 

Chemical  preparations 

I 

4,600 

2,500 

4 

Pianoforte  actions 

3 

10,000 

4,000 

10 

Church  organs 

1 

12,000 

4,000 

8 

Brushes 

3 

192,200 

114,000 

208 

Saddles,  harnesses,  and  trunks 

6 

15,300 

5,200 

14 

Upholstery 

1 

3,000 

2,000 

3 

Hats  and  caps 

5 

- 

16,.500 

58 

Cordage 

1 

- 

6,000 

10 

Railroad     ears,     coaches,    chaises, 

wagons,  sleighs,  and  other  vehicles 

7 

137,700 

17,800 

93 

OU 

2 

126,000 

30,000 

7 

Soap  and  tallow  candles 

16 

1,300,000 

140 

Chairs  and  cabinet  ware 

5 

128,500 

68,000 

168 

Tinware 

7 

27,700 

15,200 

23 

Linseed  oil 

1 

90,000 

50,000 

10 

Hides  tanned 

1 

2,500 

1,500, 

3 

Leather  curried 

2 

90,000 

20,000 

18 

Boots  and  shoes 

- 

23,600 

- 

51 

Brick 

- 

1,834,000 

- 

- 

Snuff,  tobacco,  and  cigars 

- 

388,700 

- 

42 

Building  stone 

- 

67,000 

- 

72 

Blocks  and  pumps 

- 

10,000 

- 

4 

Sashes,  doors,  and  blinds 

1 

7,000 

2,000 

7 

Gas 

1 

20,000 

100,000 

6 

324 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


Goods  Made. 


Bread 

Type 

Boxes  (soap,  candle,  and  paper) 

Ladders 

Feather  dusters 

Printing  and  bookbinding 

Confectionery 

Leather  dressing 

Wood-turning 

Sweep  sawing 

Planing-mills 

Cigar  boxes 

Bacon 

Penrhyn  marble 

Wash  leather 

Shovels  and  ladders 

Clothes  and  fish  lines 

Marble 

Persian  sherbet 

Pulpits 

Cement 

Saws 

Cards 

Woolen  goods 

Mechanical  tools 


3  ^ 


108 


Value. 


167,500 

71,000 

34,000 

8,000 

5,000 

175,000 

110,000 

10,000 

25,000 

45,000 

12,000 

8,000 

60,000 

125,000 

6,(X)0 

5,000 

5,000 

10,000 

7,000 

6,000 

40,000 
2,000 

18,600 
1,000 


$4,821,100 


Capital 
Invested. 


17,000 

64,000 

3,000 

1,000 

41,000 

30,000 

6,000 

10,000 

20,000 

4,000 

2,000 

23,000 

60,000 

2,500 

2,000 

2,000 

4,000 

10,000 

2,500 

1,000 

30,000 

1,000 


Pu  a 


44 

95 

36 

20 

5 

120 

18 

3 

2 

4 

6 

2 

30 

35 

4 

4 

6 

6 

3 

5 

2 

35 

2 

25 

1 


$2,698,700   2,036 


MANUFACTURES     IN     CAMBRIDGE     FOR    THE    YEAR 
ENDING  MAY   1,   1865. 


Number  of  establishments 173 

Value  of  goods  made $6,942,063 1 

Capital  invested 2,447,559  ^ 

Value  of  stock  used 2,918,439  ^ 

Males  employed 2,710 

Females  employed 429 

1  Currency  values,  average  gold  being  $1.57. 


SUNDRY  FIGURES. 


325 


MANUFACTURES    IN    CAMBRIDGE     FOR     THE    YEAR 
ENDING  MAY   1,   1875. 


Value  of  Ooods 

OooDS  Mask. 

1  j 

Capital 

Made  and 

9  -O 

Invested.* 

Work  Done.* 

Artists'materials 

2 

$400 

$2,672 

Barrels 

1 

30,000 

201,000 

Barrels  and  harnesses 

2 

.57,-500 

56,650 

Boats 

1 

2,500 

18,000 

Boilers,  tanks,  etc. 

2 

55,000 

180,550 

Boots  and  shoes 

7 

3,150 

9,135 

Bookbinding 

2 

72,000 

435,300 

Book  and  pamphlet  printing 

3 

420,000 

551,000 

Bread,  cake,  and  pastry 

13 

46,800 

261,222 

Brick 

7 

513,000 

249,275 

Britannia   ware,    stationers'    hard- 

ware, etc. 

1 

30,000 

33,000 

Brooms 

2 

1,500 

9,375 

Brushes 

3 

90,000 

221,000 

Buildings 

8 

105,000 

377,500 

Carriages,  wagons,  sleighs,  etc. 

9 

55,500 

83,885 

Car  springs 

1 

6,000 

12,000 

Car  wheels 

1 

20,000 

34,000 

Cigars 

12 

12,300 

49,978 

Clothing,  men's 

6 

14,550 

79,900 

Coffins,  robes,  etc. 

2 

100,.500 

175,350 

Collars  and  cuffs,  paper 

1 

140,000 

550,000 

Confectionery  and  ice  cream 

5 

22,081 

131,375 

Cordage 

3 

650 

9,700 

Crackers 

2 

92,000 

500,000 

Diaries 

1 

130,000 

150,000 

Drain  pipes,  chimney  tops,  etc. 

1 

10,000 

75,000 

Earthenware 

2 

60,700 

60,000 

Engine  polish,   boiler   composition. 

etc. 

1 

500 

5,000 

Fishing-rods 

1 

50 

1,050 

Furniture,  house,  church,  and  office 

10 

150,300 

616,837 

Furnace  registers  and  borders 

1 

3,000 

8,725 

Gas 

1 

950,000 

248,100 

Glassware 

2 

500,000 

370,500 

Glass  syringes,  tubes,  etc. 

1 

500 

5,000 

Hardware 

1 

10,000 

15,750 

Hats  and  bonnets,  women's 

1 

500 

800 

Ice 

2 

125,000 

32,500 

Iron  castings 

1 

10,000 

40,000 

Iron  rolled 

1 

160,000 

420,000 

Ladders,  steps,  clothes  driers,  etc. 

2 

15,000 

10,.500 

Leather 

5 

110.000 

605,646 

Lumber  planed,  etc. 

1 

10,000 

50,000 

Machinery 

4 

386,000 

480,493 

Mats,  door 

1 

4,000 

8,000 

Medicines,  proprietary 

2 

108,000 

170,000 

Monuments,  mantels,  tablets,  etc. 

7 

91,500 

1.38,080 

Figures  being  in  currency,  average  gold  being  $1.12. 


326 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


-1 

Value  of  Goods 

Goods  Madb. 

Capital 
Invested.! 

Made  and 
Work  Done.! 

Mouldings,  brackets,  boxes,  etc. 

3 

265,000 

231,000 

Newspapers,  magazines,  etc. 

6 

35,000 

103,600 

Oil  clotliing  and  waterproof  hats 

1 

9,000 

35,000 

Oleomargarine  and  stearine 

1 

50.000 

69,000 

Organs,  cabinet  and  church 

3 

57i;000 

1,036,000 

Patterns,  wooden 

1 

200 

1,000 

Photographs 

1 

5,000 

15,000 

Pianofortes 

1 

10,000 

6,060 

Pianoforte  actions 

2 

12,000 

33,200 

Piano  and  organ  key-boards 

1 

33,000 

137,604 

Piano  taborets 

1 

400 

4,000 

Picture  frames 

3 

5,300 

10,700 

Pocketbooks 

1 

1,000 

6,195 

Printing,  job 

3 

21,000 

27,500 

Pumps,  wooden 

1 

300 

250 

Roofing  cement 

2 

6,000 

17,500 

Rum 

1 

45,000 

199,347 

Sausages 

3 

5,500 

31,000 

Shirts,  cuffs,  and  collars 

1 

550 

7,500 

Shirts,  overalls,  and  jumpers 

1 

1,000 

4,000 

Slippers 

1 

10,000 

120,000 

Soap,  tallow,  and  candles 

9 

168,500 

928,800 

Spring-beds  and  cots 

2 

18,000 

51, .300 

Stair  rails,  balusters,  etc. 

2 

4,500 

22,5.50 

Steel  engravings 

1 

2,000 

4,000 

Sugar  refined 

1 

500,000 

4,000,000 

Telescopes 

1 

20,000 

10,000 

Tinware 

5 

204,850 

321,068 

Trunks  and  valises 

1 

3,000 

14,800 

Tools  for  ice-cutting 

2 

4,500 

9,790 

Wood,  sawed  and  turned 

1 

65,000 

80,000 

Washstands     and     woodwork     for 

sewing-machines 

1 

700 

1,5.50 

Whips 

1 

300 

1,200 

Aggregates 

210 

$6,803,081 

$15,284,362 

!  Figures  being  in  currency,  average  gold  being  fl.12. 


VALUE  1  OF  BUILDINGS  USED  FOR  MANUFACTURING 
PURPOSES,  STOCK  ON  HAND,  AND  MACHINERY  IN 
CAMBRIDGE  FOR  THE  YEAR  ENDING  MAY  1,  1875. 

Number  of  establishments 207 

Value  of  buildings $1,644,025 

Value  of  average  stock  on  hand   ........  2,215,412 

Value  of  machinery            .........  1,071,060 

Value  of  imported  machinery 5,700 

'  In  currency,  average  gold  being  $1.12. 


SUNDRY  FIGURES. 


327 


NUMBER  OF  ESTABLISHMENTS  ENGAGED  IN  MANU- 
FACTURING IN  CAMBRIDGE  DURING  THE  YEAR 
ENDING  JUNE  30,   1885. 


S 

S 

■sg 

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b  s 

ll 
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Industbies. 

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Artificial  teeth  and  dental  work 

11 

Liquors :  malt,  distilled,  and  fer- 

Artisans' tools 

1 

mented 

5 

Boots  and  shoes 

33 

Lumber 

1 

Boxes  (paper  and  wooden) 

6 

Machines  and  machinery 

10 

Brick,  tiles,  and  sewer  pipe 

7 

Metals  and  metallic  goods 

51 

Brooms,  brushes,  and  mops 

3 

Musical  Instruments  and  mate- 

Building 

121 

rials 

9 

Burial  cases,  caskets,  etc. 

5 

Paints,  colors,  and  crade  chemi- 

Carpetings 

2 

cals 

1 

Carriages  and  wagons 

31 

Photographs   and  photographic 

Cement,  kaolin,  lime,  and  plaster 

2 

materials 

7 

Chemical      preparations      (com- 

Printing,  publishing,  and  book- 

poimded) 

2 

binding 

15 

Clothing 

67 

Railroad  construction 

1 

Cooking,  lighting,   and   heating 

Rubber  and  elastic  goods 

1 

apparatus 

1 

Scientific  instruments  and  appli- 

Cordage and  twine 

3 

ances 

3 

Drugs  and  medicines 

28 

Shipbuilding 

2 

DyestuflFs 

1 

Sporting  and  athletic  goods 

1 

Earthen,  plaster,  and  stone  ware 

2 

Stone 

15 

Fine  arts  and  taxidermy 

1 

Tallow,      candles,     soap,      and 

Food  preparations 

45 

grease 

12 

Furniture 

24 

Tobacco,  snuff,  and  cigars 

13 

Gas  and  residual  products 

1 

Trunks  and  valises 

1 

Glass 

2 

Whips,  lashes,  and  stocks 

1 

Hair  work  (animal  and  human) 

1 

Wooden  goods 

13 

Hose  I  rubber   linen  etc* 

1 

Leather 

15 

All  industries 

578 

328 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


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332  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

PRINTING  AND   PUBLISHING. 

The  history  of  printing  in  Cambridge  shows  conclusively  that  as  a 
centre  of  the  art  the  city  has  no  rival  of  its  size  in  the  world.  The 
combined  output  from  the  three  great  establishments,  The  Riverside 
Press,  The  University  Press,  and  The  Athenaeum  Press  is  enormous, 
and  "  the  civilizing  and  educating  influence  thus  exerted  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated." 

The  first  printing  in  the  colonies  was  done  in  Cambridge,  and  is 
described  in  the  following  extracts  from  an  address  made  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Citizens'  Trade  Association,  in  1894,  by  the  late  Henry  0. 
Houghton. 

HON.  H.  o.  Houghton's  address. 

The  first  printing  in  the  English-speaking  colonies  of  this  country 
was  done  here  in  Cambridge.  The  history  of  its  progress  is  very 
interesting. 

A  clergyman  by  the  name  of  Glover  left  England  with  a  printing- 
press,  two  or  three  workmen,  and  his  family,  for  this  country  in  1638. 
He  died  on  the  passage,  and  the  press  was  set  up  in  January,  1639,  in 
the  house  of  the  first  president  of  Harvard  College,  Henry  Dunster. 
This  president  was  a  man  with  an  eye  to  the  main  chance,  and  he 
secured  possession  of  the  press  by  marrying  the  widow  of  the  man  who 
started  from  England  with  it,  and  he  retained  possession  of  it  for 
many  years.  Some  years  afterwards,  when  the  son  of  this  widow  had 
gi'own  up,  he  brought  suit  for  the  recovery  of  the  press.  The  president 
filed  an  account  current  in  which  he  debited  himself  with  an  inventory 
of  the  press  amounting  to  fourteen  hundred  and  odd  pounds  sterling. 
He  credited  himself  with  his  wife's  board  and  several  other  incidental 
expenses,  which  looked  very  much  as  if  he  wanted  to  make  as  good  an 
offset  as  possible.  The  difference  between  the  two  accounts  amounted 
to  about  one  hundred  pounds,  for  which  the  president  acknowledged 
himself  as  a  debtor.  The  matter  seems  to  have  been  taken  out  of  the 
court  and  put  into  the  hands  of  arbitrators,  but  there  is  no  record  of 
the  president  paying  over  to  the  heirs  the  amount  adjudged  against 
him.  Some  time  after  the  receipt  of  the  first  press  another  was  sent 
over  by  some  society  instituted  for  propagating  the  gospel  among  the 
Indians  of  this  continent,  and  this  press  also  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
president  of  the  college,  and  the  Indians  are  still  unconverted.  Pres- 
ident Dunster  also  seemed  to  have  great  political  influence,  for  he  had 
a  law  passed  that  all  the  printing  executed  in  the  colonies  should  be 
done  in  Cambridge.  There  was  also  a  law  passed  by  the  General 
Court  appointing  licensers  of  the  press,  and  my  impression  is  that  the 
president  was  appointed  on  this  board  also,  but  of  this  fact  I  have  not 


PRINTING  AND  PUBLISHING.  333 

been  able  to  find  sufficient  corroboration.  Stephen  Daye  was  appar- 
ently an  employee  of  the  president.  He  was  not  a  successful  printer. 
He  did  not  know  how  to  spell  or  punctuate,  or  to  do  a  great  many 
things  that  printers  are  expected  to  do.  He  was  soon  after  dismissed 
from  the  office.  He  then  became  a  real-estate  agent.  Among  other 
transactions  he  sold  twenty-seven  acres  of  land  for  a  cow,  a  calf,  and 
a  three-year-old  heifer.  He  also  owned  land  in  the  outlying  districts, 
mainly  in  Lancaster,  Mass.  In  my  judgment  Mr.  Daye  was  not  in 
any  sense  the  first  printer.  The  first  printer  was  Dunster.  Although 
he  did  not  set  up  type  (it  is  not  quite  certain  that  Stephen  Daye  him- 
self did),  he  was  the  controlling  power  of  the  press,  and  so  far  as  a 
man  who  marries  a  printing  press,  and  has  control  of  it,  can  be  called 
a  pi'inter,  Dunster  was  that  printer.  After  Mr.  Daye  left  the  press, 
which  was  very  soon  after  new  relations  had  been  established,  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Greene,  who  came  over  with  Winthrop,  and  was  one  of 
the  boys  of  the  town,  became  the  manager  of  the  press.  He  proved 
to  be  a  very  energetic  man.  He  had  charge  of  the  press  for  forty 
years.  He  was  elected  captain  of  the  militia  of  the  town,  and  held 
that  position  for  thirty  years.  After  Greene  died,  for  nearly  seventy- 
five  years,  there  was  no  printing  press  in  Cambridge. 

After  the  failure  of  the  first  press,  a  wonderful  change  took  place 
in  the  colonies.  While  it  existed,  the  press  of  Cambridge  seemed  to 
have  a  paralyzing  influence  on  all  enterprises  of  the  kind.  There 
were  no  newspapers  and  no  other  enterprises  in  the  way  of  printing 
xmtil  after  this  press  failed.  It  failed  because  it  was  a  great  mo- 
nopoly. Immediately  afterwards  newspapers  sprang  up  in  Boston, 
Worcester,  and  other  places,  and  soon  after  a  press  was  established  in 
Philadelphia  and  finally  in  New  York.  Franklin  quarreled  with  liis 
brother  at  Boston,  and  was  driven  to  Philadelphia,  and  Bradford,  on 
account  of  a  quarrel  with  his  brother  Quakers,  was  driven  to  New 
York.  So  anxious  were  these  people  to  find  evidence  against  Brad- 
ford on  account  of  his  printing  heretical  matter  in  his  newspaper,  that 
they  held  up  the  form  of  type  in  order  to  see  what  was  printed ;  but  in 
doing  this  pied  the  type  and  destroyed  the  evidence  against  him.  All 
these  apparently  little  causes  led  to  great  results.  The  establishment 
of  the  newspaper  led  to  the  discussion  of  political  questions,  and  those 
led  eventually  to  the  Revolutionary  War. 

This  is  from  an  informal  address  not  intended  for  publication,  but  it  is  the 
only  possible  contribution  from  one  whose  chief  interests  were  towards  furthering 
the  welfare  of  the  city  and  the  artistic  improvement  of  the  printing  art. 

Mr.  John  Wilson  contributes  the  following  interesting  facts  in  regard 
to  his  father's  important  share  in  the  improvement  of  American  book- 
making  :  — 


334  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

When  the  mechanical  execution  of  the  books  of  fifty  years  ago  is 
compared  with  that  of  to-day,  every  one  must  admit  the  superiority  of 
the  latter.  This  improvement  was  the  result  of  various  causes,  among 
which  I  may  mention  the  part  taken  by  my  father.  As  a  man  and  an 
artist  John  Wilson,  Sr.,  was  an  Old  World  product,  possessing  the  lib- 
eral tendency  and  breadth  of  view  of  the  New  World.  He  combined 
with  thorough  mechanical  training  an  excellent  artistic  taste,  and  also 
an  intellectual  appreciation  of  a  good  book,  both  in  its  literary  and 
technical  construction,  which  is  rare  either  among  printers  or  publish- 
ers. Indeed,  his  literary  instinct  amounted  to  a  passion,  so  that  he 
soon  became  (all  by  his  unaided  efforts)  a  scholar  as  well  as  a  me- 
chanic ;  and  as  Elihu  Burritt  was  called  "  the  learned  blacksmith,"  so 
John  Wilson,  Sr.,  might  truly  have  been  called  "the  learned  printer," 
knowing  not  only  his  own  art  to  perfection,  but  knowing  also  the 
Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  French,  and  German  languages  ;  and  being  not 
only  the  maker  of  books  for  others,  but  the  author  himself  of  several. 
His  "  Treatise  on  Punctuation  "  is  an  acknowledged  authority  on  the 
subject.  Emigrating  from  England  to  the  United  States  in  1846,  he 
established  himself  in  business  in  Boston,  the  firm  name  being  John 
Wilson  &  Son.  Even  before  his  removal  to  Cambridge,  his  fame  as  a 
skillful  and  artistic  printer  was  wide-|eaching ;  and  this,  in  connection 
with  the  intelligence  and  enterprise  of  others,  —  notably  Welch  and 
Bigelow,  and  the  Hon.  H.  O.  Houghton,  —  served  to  give  an  impetus 
to  an  art  already  well  advanced,  which  seemed,  especially  from  that 
time,  to  gain  renewed  vigor  and  to  make  more  rapid  strides  than  it  had 
done  for  many  generations  in  the  making  of  beautiful  books.  This 
marked  improvement  in  the  art  of  printing  in  this  country  was  doubt- 
less due  in  great  measure  to  the  honorable  competition  of  the  three 
Cambridge  houses,  —  the  University  Press,  the  Riverside  Press,  and 
the  Wilson  Press. 

THE   RIVEB8IDE    PRKSS. 

The  publishing  house  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  has  its  offices  in 
Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago,  but  its  manufactory  and  shipping 
department  are  in  Cambridge,  and  the  manufacture  of  books,  whether 
for  the  Boston  house  or  for  other  publishers,  is  carried  on  at  the  estab- 
lishment known  as  The  Riverside  Press.  The  estate  on  Blackstone 
Street  comprises  a  tract  of  ground  about  four  acres  in  extent.  The 
buildings  are  separated  from  the  public  highway  by  a  large  open 
inclosure,  and  the  Park  system,  when  completed,  will  provide  a  wide 
roadway  by  the  place.  The  river  itself  affords  an  important  water- 
way, so  that  coal  is  brought  in  bulk  and  stored  in  capacious  sheds  on 
the  bank.  The  original  building,  a  three-story  structure  of  brick, 
sixty  feet  by  forty,  may  be  distinguished  from  the  pile  in  which  it  is 


The  Riversipe  Press  in  1852. 


The  Riverside  Press  in  1896. 


THE  RIVERSIDE  PRESS.  335 

imbedded  by  its  old-fashioned  style,  and  its  domestic  dormer  windows. 
It  is  connected  with  the  fireproof  warehouses  that  stand  on  the  bank 
of  the  river  and  forms  an  extension  of  the  main  building,  which  has 
a  frontage  on  the  east  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet,  and  on  the 
north  nearly  as  great.  In  addition  to  this  main  building,  the  original 
structure,  and  the  connected  line  of  warehouses,  there  is  a  brick  safe 
one  story  high  for  the  storage  of  electrotype  and  stereotype  plates, 
a  capacious  engine  and  boiler  house,  and  a  large  building  where  the 
lithogi'aphic  department  is  housed.  This  building  is  two  hundred  feet 
long  by  seventy-five  in  width  for  half  its  length,  and  forty-five  feet 
in  width  for  the  remainder.  It  has  a  high  basement,  and  one  lofty 
story  lighted  with  a  monitor  roof. 

The  distribution  of  material  and  apparatus  and  the  organization 
of  work  in  these  several  buildings  is  planned  to  secure  the  greatest 
safety  to  property,  the  least  possible  handling  of  books  in  their  pro- 
cess of  manufacture,  and  the  best  conditions  of  healthy  work  on  the 
part  of  the  large  number  of  men,  women,  and  boys  employed  in  this 
industry.  The  separation  of  the  group  from  other  buildings  and  its 
free  space  give  the  establishment  a  large  immunity  from  the  danger 
of  fire,  and  the  concentration  of  power  also  lessens  the  danger  and 
economizes  the  force.  A  Corliss  engine  of  one  hundred  horse-power 
operates  the  entire  machinery  in  all  the  buildings,  —  for  the  great 
detached  lithographic  building  seventy-five  feet  away  is  connected  by 
a  tunnel  with  the  main  group.  Steam  is  supplied  by  three  upright 
boilers,  each  of  one  hundred  horse-power.  Two  Knowles  steam  fire- 
pumps  are  always  in  readiness  for  use.  All  of  the  buildings  are  con- 
nected by  automatic  fire  alarms,  as  also  with  the  city  fire  department. 
The  Grinnell  automatic  sprinkler  is  in  place  throughout,  and  a  fire 
brigade,  composed  of  sixty-five  men  employed  at  the  Press,  is  kept  in 
constant  training.  This  department  is  under  the  charge  of  one  of  the 
firm,  who  not  only  makes  repeated  tests  of  the  order  of  the  apparatus 
but  calls  out  the  fire-brigade  from  time  to  time  on  false  alarms. 
Thus  the  men  are  kept  in  practice.  Electricity  is  used  throughout  in 
lighting  the  premises. 

The  founder  of  the  business,  which  now  employs  some  seven  hun- 
dred persons,  was  the  late  Henry  Oscar  Houghton,  at  one  time  mayor 
of  Cambridge,  and  a  resident  of  the  city  for  nearly  fifty  years,  till  his 
death  in  1895.  The  office  was  first  established  in  1849  in  Remingfton 
Street,  but  more  room  was  soon  needed,  and  Mr.  Brown,  of  the  pub- 
lishing firm  of  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  bought  the  original  premises  on 
Blackstone  Street,  formerly  used  by  Cambridge  as  a  house  for  the 
town  poor,  and  standing  almost  in  the  open  country.  Mr.  Houghton 
and  Mr.  Brown  were  desirous  of  giving  the  new  press  a  significant 
name,  and  tried  various  experiments  till  Mr.  Brown  said  one  day : 


336  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

'^  This  press  stands  by  the  side  of  the  Charles  River ;  why  not  call  it 
The  Riverside  Press  ?  "  and  this  most  natural  name  was  then  given 
it,  so  that  now  the  term  Riverside  has  come  to  cover  a  thickly  pop- 
ulated district  and  to  be  applied  to  various  neighboring  industries. 

THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS. 

The  history  of  the  University  Press  at  Cambridge  dates  back  to 
1639,  making  it  the  oldest  book-printing  establishment  in  America. 
One  of  the  earliest  books  issued  by  the  Press  while  under  the  charge 
of  Samuel  Greene  is  still  in  existence,  being  cherished  as  a  valued 
relic  of  the  printer's  art  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 
The  volume  is  entitled  "  The  General  Laws  and  Liberties  of  the 
Massachusetts  Colony,"  revised  and  reprinted  by  order  of  the  General 
Court  holden  in  Boston,  May  15,  1672,  according  to  the  printed  state- 
ment of  Edward  Rawson,  secretary.  The  imprint  shows  that  the 
book  was  printed  in  Cambridge  by  Samuel  Greene,  for  John  Usher 
of  Boston,  in  1672.  The  type  on  the  title  page  is  included  within  a 
double  rule  border.  Its  covers  are  of  the  sort  that  legal  books  of  a 
century  ago  were  generally  inclosed  within,  and  the  frayed  edges  of 
the  leaves  are  the  color  of  sienna.  The  leaves  are  untrimmed.  The 
book  is  about  13  by  7  by  1;^^  inches,  —  a  medium  folio  of  its  day.  The 
typographical  characters  are  peculiar  when  contrasted  with  the  present 
art  of  type-casting,  being  poorly  cut  and  liable  to  get  out  of  alignment. 
That  the  Press  had  a  considerable  variety  of  fonts  of  type  is  apparent 
when  one  glances  at  this  book  of  1672.  Mr.  Greene  had  some  strange 
ornamental  cuts  in  his  office,  one  of  which  embellished  the  first  page 
of  matter  in  the  book.  It  shows  two  cherubs  puffing  their  cheeks  into 
trumpets  at  a  grim  skeleton  just  emerging  from  an  open  coffin. 

Other  notable  books  printed  by  the  Press  during  its  early  years 
were  the  "  Indian  New  Testament,"  in  1661,  and  the  "  Indian  Bible," 
in  1663,  the  second  edition  of  which  was  in  press  six  years,  and  was 
issued  in  1685. 

Mr.  Greene  died  in  1701,  and  after  his  death  no  printing  was  done 
in  Cambridge  until  1761,  when  the  Press  was  reestablished  by  the 
college,  and  was  maintained  by  it  or  by  private  parties  up  to  1803,  by 
which  time  it  had  gained  firm  foundation.  The  college  catalogue 
bearing  this  date  was  undoubtedly  printed  at  the  University  Press, 
and  the  catalogue  of  1805  shows  that  William  Hilliard  was  in  charge 
of  the  printing  at  that  time.  In  1811  an  edition  of  Dalzel's  "  Col- 
lectanea Graeca  Majora  "  was  printed  by  the  Press.  Its  imprint  shows 
that  Eliab  W.  Metcalf  had  become  associated  with  Mr.  HiUiard  at 
this  time. 

Two  years  later,  Charles  Folsom,  a  graduate  of  the  class  of  1813, 
and  Librarian  of  the  college  from  1823  to  1826,  became  identified  with 


Athenaeum  Pkess. 


The  University  Press. 


THE   UNIVERSITY  AND  ATHENJEUM  PRESSES.     337 

the  Press,  and  his  scholarship  did  much  to  increase  the  high  reputa- 
tion it  had  already  gained  for  accuracy  and  elegance  of  workmanship. 
At  this  time  nearly  all  the  text-books  used  in  the  college  were  printed 
here.  Mr.  Folsom  became  known  as  the  *'  Harvard  Aldus,"  and 
during  his  proprietorship  books  were  printed  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin, 
French,  Italian,  German,  and  Spanish.  Among  other  books  issued 
at  this  time  may  be  mentioned  Sparks's  edition  of  Washington's 
Writings,  and  his  "  American  Biography,"  and  Prescott's  histories. 

In  1842  the  Press  passed  into  the  hands  of  Charles  R.  Metcalf, 
Omen  S.  Keitli,  and  George  Nichols,  but  within  a  year  or  two  Mr. 
Keith  retired,  and  Marshall  T.  Bigelow  entered  the  firm.  In  1859 
the  firm-name  was  changed  to  Welch,  Bigelow  &  Co.,  and  as  such 
gained  a  still  wider  reputation  for  skilled  book-making.  In  1879  Jolm 
Wilson  and  Charles  E.  Wentworth  became  the  proprietors,  and  largely 
increased  the  capacity  of  the  Press  by  adding  to  it  the  well-known 
establishment  of  John  Wilson  &  Son. 

During  these  years  many  remarkable  books  were  produced.  The 
productions  of  Holmes,  Sparks,  Prescott,  Ticknor,  Palfrey,  Judge 
Story,  Quincy,  Everett,  Hilliard,  Dana,  Longfellow,  Hawthorne,  Whit- 
tier,  Emerson,  LoweU,  and  many  others,  first  issued  from  this  press, 
gave  evidence  of  its  well-earned  reputation  for  accuracy  and  scholar- 
ship. 

In  1895  the  Press  was  incorporated  under  the  laws  of  Massachu- 
setts, with  John  Wilson  as  president,  and  Henry  White  as  treasurer. 
In  order  to  give  enlarged  opportunities  for  executing  work,  the  plant 
has  just  moved  into  a  commodious  brick  building  near  its  old  locar- 
tion,  facing  the  Charles  River.  The  new  plant  is  equipped  with  the 
most  modern  improvements,  being  the  first  in  New  England  to  intro- 
duce individual  electric  motors  for  power  for  each  separate  press 
or  machine.  This  is  but  in  keeping  with  its  previous  history,  as  the 
first  Adams  and  the  first  Hoe  stop-cylinder  presses  made  in  this  coun- 
try were  used  by  the  University  Press.  The  process  of  electrotyping 
early  superseded  the  old  system  of  stereotyping  at  the  University  Press, 
and  has  here  been  brought  to  its  highest  state  of  perfection. 

ATHEX^UM   PRESS. 

That  certain  portions  of  Cambridge  offer  exceptional  advantages  to 
manufacturers  is  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  recent  action  of  Ginn  & 
Co.,  the  well  known  schoolbook  publishers.  After  very  careful  exami- 
nation of  all  available  land  in  and  about  Boston,  they  finally  decided 
that  on  the  banks  of  the  Charles  River,  within  a  radius  of  one  mUe 
from  the  State  House,  was  the  best  possible  location  for  their  extensive 
publishing  plant.  Here  they  obtained  land  at  a  reasonable  price  with 
abundant  light,  so  difficult  to  secure  in  the  crowded  city  and  so  essen- 


338  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

tial  to  the  best  quality  of  work.  Near  by  are  all  the  great  freight 
stations,  affording  the  best  advantages  for  shipping  in  all  directions. 
Lines  of  electric  cars  bring  their  employees  from  any  part  of  Boston 
or  suburbs  almost  to  the  door.  The  favorable  location  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  building  reduced  the  cost  of  insurance  to  the  minimum. 

The  Athenaeum  Press,  as  the  owners  style  their  building,  was  dex 
signed  by  Messrs.  Lockwood,  Greene  &  Co.,  mill  engineers  of  wide 
reputation,  who  have  spared  no  pains  to  make  this  as  nearly  as  possible 
a  model  building  for  manufacturing  purposes.  Practically  fireproof, 
it  is  built  on  two  sides  of  a  square,  with  a  frontage  of  two  hundred 
feet  on  each  street  and  a  depth  of  seventy  feet,  with  a  power-house,  in 
addition  to  the  main  building,  in  the  rear.  The  structure  is  of  brick 
five  stories  high,  with  brown-stone  trimmings,  the  whole  surmounted 
by  a  terra-cotta  statue  of  Athena,  made  especially  for  this  building  by 
Siligardi,  of  Florence,  Italy.  Any  one  approaching  the  city  by  way 
of  the  West  Boston  Bridge  is  forcibly  impressed  with  the  noble  propor- 
tions and  substantial  character  of  this  building. 

In  designing  and  equipping  the  plant,  not  only  has  the  closest  atten- 
tion been  made  to  the  requirements  of  manufacturing  in  the  most  eco- 
nomical manner,  but  the  health  and  comfort  of  the  enqjloyees  have  been 
constantly  kept  in  view.  Fresh  air  warmed  over  steam  coils  is  forced 
through  the  building  by  means  of  an  enormous  fan,  and  the  impure  air 
is  drawn  out  at  the  roof  by  smaller  ones.  The  plumbing  is  of  the  best 
quality.  The  different  departments  are  connected  by  telephone  with 
each  other,  and  by  a  private  line  with  the  office  in  Tremont  Place, 
Boston.  The  fire-proof  plate  vaults  and  rooms  for  storage  of  books, 
together  with  complete  fire  equipment,  make  it  almost  impossible  to 
suffer  any  serious  loss  by  fire.  The  whole  plant  is  lighted  with  eight 
hundred  incandescent  and  thirty  arc  lights,  fed  by  a  current  generated 
on  the  premises.  The  engine-room,  with  its  tiled  floor  and  well-pol- 
ished fittings,  is  a  model  of  its  kind.  The  different  departments  occupy 
about  three  acres  of  floor  space,  and  here  may  be  seen  the  most  im- 
proved machinery  known  to  the  printing  and  binding  business.  Type- 
setting machines,  automatic  folders,  presses  printing  maps  in  two  colors 
at  once,  —  all  demonstrate  the  wonderful  ingenuity  and  mechanical  skill 
of  the  present  age.  The  output  of  this  establishment  is  at  present  ten 
thousand  books  per  day,  and  that  number  can  be  doubled  in  case  of 
necessity. 

There  is  a  sort  of  poetic  justice  in  the  establishment  of  Ginn  &  Co.'s 
Press  in  Cambridge,  for  a  large  number  of  their  publications  are  edited 
by  Cambridge  men.  Their  first  book,  "  Craik's  English  of  Shake- 
speare," edited  by  W.  J.  Rolfe,  was  published  about  the  year  1867. 
Then  followed  the  well-known  series  of  Latin  books  by  Allen  and 
Greenough ;  the  Greek  Grammar,  by  Prof.  W.  W.  Goodwin ;  Greek 


THE  CAMBRIDGEPORT  DIARY  COMPANY.  339 

Lessons,  by  Prof.  J.  W.  White  ;  the  "  Harvard  Shakespeare,"  by  Dr. 
Henry  N.  Hudson  ;  the  mathematical  works  of  Prof.  J.  M.  Peirce  and 
Prof.  W.  E.  Byerly,  and  many  others. 

Among  the  other  books  most  widely  known  and  most  extensively 
used,  of  the  eight  hundred  now  published  by  the  house,  are  the 
Wentworth  Series  of  Mathematics,  the  National  Music  Course,  by 
Luther  Whiting  Mason,  Whitney's  Essentials  of  English  Grammar, 
Lockwood's  Lessons  in  English,  Collar  and  Daniell's  Beginner's  Latin 
Book,  Young's  Series  of  Astronomies,  Blaisdell's  Physiologies,  Gage's 
Physics,  the  sei-ies  of  Classics  for  Children,  Montgomery's,  Myers's, 
and  Allen's  Histories,  and  Frye's  Geographies. 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  this  house  to  make  a  careful  study  of  the 
problems  of  education,  and  it  has  spared  no  pains  to  secure  the  best 
editorial  talent  possible.  Its  list  now  includes  books  by  the  leading 
educational  men  all  over  the  country,  and  in  almost  every  town  in  the 
United  States  some  of  their  publications  are  used.  The  house  has  for 
many  years  been  second  to  none  in  the  educational  value  of  its  books, 
and  in  the  short  space  of  a  little  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  grown 
to  be  the  largest  single  schoolbook  house  in  Agnerica.  It  lias  branch 
offices  in  New  York,  Chicago,  Columbus,  Atlanta,  Dallas,  and  London, 
England.  Over  fifty  traveling  agents  are  employed  in  the  work  of 
introducing  its  books. 

The  following  members  compose  the  firm :  — 

Edwin  Ginn,  of  Boston,  the  founder  of  the  house  ;  G.  A.  Plympton, 
of  New  York  ;  Fred  B.  Ginn,  of  Oakland,  Cal.  ;  Justin  H.  Smith,  of 
Boston  ;  T.  P.  Ballard,  of  Chicago  ;  Lewis  Parkhurst,  of  Boston ;  S. 
S.  White,  of  Boston  ;  0.  P.  Conant,  of  New  York ;  Ralph  L.  Hayes, 
of  Philadelphia ;  T.  W.  Gilson,  of  Chicago ;  F.  M.  Ambrose,  of  New 
York  ;  and  H.  H.  Hilton,  of  Chicago. 

THE   CAMBRIDGEPORT   DIARY    COMPANY. 

The  publication  of  diaries  is  a  long  established  and  important  indus- 
try in  Cambridge,  especially  identified  with  the  city  by  the  fact  that 
these  useful  little  books  ai*e  known  to  the  trade  the  country  over  as 
"  the  Cambridgeport  Diaries,"  though  properly  named  the  "  Standard 
Diaries,"  and  familiar  to  vast  numbers  of  people  in  every  State  in  the 
Union  by  this  title. 

In  the  fall  of  1850  Edwin  Dresser  and  Eben  Denton,  under  the 
firm  name  of  Edwin  Dresser  &  Co.,  began  the  manufacture  of  diaries 
and  memorandum  books  in  two  small  rooms  on  Main  Street,  near  Nor- 
folk Street.  The  business  increased,  and  soon  a  removal  was  neces- 
sary to  larger  quarters  on  Main  Street,  opposite  Brookline  Street. 

Here  for  a  time  James  Prince  Richardson  —  well  known  as  the 
captain  of  the  first  company  of  volunteers  which  left  Massachusetts  for 


340  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

the  defense  of  the  Union  in  1861  —  was  connected  with  the  business. 
In  1857,  Henry  M.  Chamberlain  erected  a  building  on  Magazine 
Street  of  which  the  firm  —  then  Denton  &  Wood  —  took  entire  pos- 
session on  a  long  lease,  afterward  purchasing  the  building  and  adding 
to  it  from  time  to  time  as  the  demands  of  business  warranted. 

The  use  of  diaries  increased  enormously  during  the  war,  the  soldiers 
at  the  front  and  the  families  left  behind  being  equally  zealous  to  keep 
a  record  of  those  stirring  events.  Many  of  the  employees  enlisted  in 
the  army  and  did  honorable  service,  while  members  of  their  families 
were  furnished  remunerative  employment  in  the  growing  business. 

In  February,  1867,  Eben  Denton  sold  out  his  interest  in  the  firm  to 
Mr.  Dresser,  and  the  firm  became  Wood  &  Dresser ;  and  in  1871, 
Mr.  Dresser  bought  out  the  interest  of  Caleb  Wood,  and  the  firm  name 
again  became  Edwin  Dresser  &  Co. 

In  February,  1873,  the  business  was  incorporated  under  the  general 
law  of  the  State  as  the  Cambridgeport  Diary  Company,  other  diary 
publishing  houses  being  combined  with  the  original  and  successful 
establishment. 

The  officers  of  the  i|ew  corporation  were :  Edwin  Dresser,  president 
and  general  manager ;  George  W.  Parker,  treasurer ;  J.  Augustine 
Wade,  superintendent ;  and  under  these  officers  —  except  that  in  1877 
Albert  S.  Parsons  succeeded  Mr.  Parker  as  treasurer  —  the  business 
has  been  run  from  that  date  to  the  present  time,  proving  one  of  the 
most  stable  and  reliable  industries  in  the  city. 

The  company  employs  a  large  force  of  skilled  printers,  bookbinders, 
and  pocket-book  makers  of  both  sexes,  most  of  whom  have  been 
brought  up  in  the  business  from  childhood,  many  having  been  with 
the  founder  of  the  industry,  Edwin  Dresser,  from  the  start  in  1850. 
Especial  care  has  always  been  paid  to  the  character  of  the  employees, 
and  the  result  is  a  body  of  self-respecting  and  permanent  citizens,  a 
credit  to  the  company  and  to  their  city. 

J.  A.  Wade,  the  superintendent,  began  as  a  boy  in  1851,  and  has 
practical  knowledge  of  every  detail  of  the  processes  of  manufacture. 
The  Magazine  Street  building,  quite  isolated  when  built,  and  for 
many  years  a  sort  of  landmark,  is  now  surrounded  by  residences  of 
elegance  and  comfort,  and  the  company,  feeling  the  locality  unsuited 
for  manufacturing  purposes,  and  having  outgrown  the  building,  in 
January,  1889,  bought  twelve  thousand  square  feet  of  land  on  the 
corner  of  Blackstone  and  Albro  streets,  in  a  section  occupied  by 
kindred  industries,  such  as  the  Riverside  Press,  the  Little  &  Brown 
Bindery,  etc.,  erecting  in  that  year  a  fine  four-story  brick  building, 
containing  twenty-five  thousand  square  feet  of  floor  space,  and  built  on 
the  most  substantial  and  approved  "  mill-construction  "  methods,  it 
being  fireproof  and  admirably  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  business 


PRINTING  AND  BOOK-BINDING.  341 

from  basement  to  roof.  Into  this  new  permanent  home  the  company- 
moved  in  February,  1890. 

Here  the  best  paper  of  the  best  mills  of  Western  Massachusetts  is 
received  and  transformed  into  diaries  of  varied  sizes,  styles,  and  quali- 
ties, bound  into  covers  of  cloth,  or  leathers  of  every  grade,  domestic 
and  imported,  the  crude  material  turned  out  a  well-finished  product, 
creditable  alike  to  the  company,  its  employees,  and  the  city  in  which 
the  industry  has  been  built  up  and  developed. 

In  the  pockets  of  rich  and  of  poor  in  the  cities,  or  of  farmers  in  the 
fields,  in  counting-rooms,  stores,  and  shops,  in  houses  of  luxury  or  in 
modest  homes  all  over  America,  these  Cambridge-made  diaries  are 
to  be  found,  all  bearing  the  title,  "  Standard  Diary,"  and  by  their  use, 
let  us  hope,  encouraging  methodical  habits,  thrift,  and  well-ordered 
lives. 


In  addition  to  these  three  large  printing  establishments  just  enu- 
merated, there  are   several   small  job  offices,  where  books  and  pam- 
phlets are  printed.    Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  following  :  — 
The  College  Press,  F.  L.  Lamkin  &  Co., 

Cambridge  Cooperative  Society,  G.  B.  Lenfest, 

J.  Frank  Facey,  Lombard  &  Caustic, 

Graves  &  Henry,  Powell  &  Co., 

Harvard  Printing  Company,  C.  H.  Taylor  &  Co., 

Lewis  J.  Hewitt,  Louis  F.  Weston, 

Jennings  &  Welch,  Edward  W.  Wheeler. 

Some  of  these  houses  print  the  various  magazines  issued  by  the 
students  of  Harvard  University;  and  all  send  out  very  good  and 
acceptable  work. 

J.  H.  H.  McNAMEE. 

J.  H.  H.  McNamee,  bookbinder,  began  business  in  1880,  in  the 
third  story  of  the  building  now  occupied  by  Claflin's  drug  store.  His 
assistant  at  that  time  was  one  boy.  In  1883  larger  quarters  were 
needed,  and  he  removed  to  the  building  on  the  corner  of  Massachusetts 
Avenue  and  Linden  Street.  Business  has  since  continued  to  increase, 
and  he  has  removed  to  the  large  building  which  he  has  erected  at 
No.  26  Brattle  Street. 

Mr.  McNamee  does  a  large  business  with  public  libraries,  and  his 
customers  are  scattered  all  over  the  country.  He  employs  thirty-five 
people,  and  during  the  year  1895  forty  thousand  volumes  passed 
through  his  hands.  The  class  of  work  turned  out  varies  from  the 
leather  bindings,  used  by  colleges  and  public  libraries,  to  the  costly 
tool-finished  volumes  for  collectors. 


342  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


MUSICAL  INSTRUMENTS. 

THE  MASON  &  HAMLIN  CO. 

In  1854  Henry  Mason  and  Emmons  Hamlin  formed  a  partnership 
for  the  manufacture  of  melodeons,  and  in  1861  the  American  cabinet 
or  parlor  organ  was  introduced  in  its  present  form  by  that  firm.  The 
mex'its  of  the  improved  instrument  were  soon  recognized,  and  the  organs 
were  sold  in  all  parts  of  America. 

The  manufacture  was  commenced  on  Cambridge  Street,  Boston,  in 
a  small  way,  but  business  increased  so  rapidly  that  the  buildings  they 
occupied  were  found  inadequate.  In  1874  they  removed  to  Cambridge- 
port  and  built  the  extensive  factory  on  the  corner  of  Broadway  and 
Brewery  Street,  which  they  now  occupy.  The  buildings  cover  thirty- 
five  thousand  square  feet  of  land,  and  contain  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  square  feet  of  working  floor  space.  The  first  Mason  & 
Hamlin  organ  was  made  in  1854  and  the  first  piano  in  1881.  The 
capacity  of  the  factory  is  ten  thousand  organs  and  fifteen  hundred 
pianos  annually.  Nearly  four  hundred  men  are  employed,  and  the 
pay-roll  is  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  per  year. 

The  Mason  &  Hamlin  organs  and  pianos  are  sold  in  nearly  all  parts 
of  the  civilized  world,  but  the  largest  single  shipment  for  export  made 
by  this  company  was  in  December,  1892.  Twenty-one  teams,  carrying 
one  hundred  and  seventy-six  organs,  were  loaded  in  one  day  and 
delivered  at  the  Cunard  Docks  to  be  forwarded  to  Liverpool.  The 
warerooms  of  the  company  are  on  Boylston  Street,  Boston. 

SAMUEL  S.  HAMILL. 

Cambridge  is  not  far  behind  her  sister  cities  in  the  art  of  church- 
organ  building.  Pipe  organs  have  been  built  here  since  1809.  Wil- 
liam M.  Goodrich,  of  Templeton,  Mass.,  began  building  church  organs 
in  Boston  in  1799.  Ten  years  later  he  moved  his  factory  to  the  Third 
Ward,  Cambridge,  at  the  corner  of  Fifth  and  Otis  streets.  He  con- 
tinued the  art  till  the  time  of  his  death,  which  occurred  in  1833.  He 
was  succeeded  by  Stevens  &  Gaieti,  at  the  same  stand,  and  subse- 
quently by  George  Stevens,  once  mayor  of  Cambridge.  Mr.  Stevens 
pursued  the  same  business  till  1891. 

Mr.  S.  S.  Hamill  established  himself  in  the  ai't  of  church-organ 
building  in  1859,  on  Gore  Street  near  Fifth,  where  he  remained  till 
1889.  Finding  his  old  factory  too  small  for  the  increasing  demand, 
he  put  up  a  new  one  on  Bent  Street,  near  Sixth,  opposite  the  Boston 
Bridge  Works,  where  he  now  is. 

During  his  thirty-six  years'  business,  he  has  built  and  put  up  over 
eight  hundred  church  organs,  by  contract,  which   have  been  put  in 


PIANOS.  343 

churches  in  nearly  every  State  in  the  Union  from  Maine  to  California, 
besides  quite  a  number  for  Canada,  New  Bi'unswick,  and  Nova  Scotia, 
also  for  the  West  Indies,  among  which  may  be  mentioned  the  cele- 
brated organ  in  the  Cathedral  of  San  Felipe  at  Havana,  Cuba ;  also 
those  in  the  churches  of  El  Monseratte,  and  Chapel  of  the  Convent  of 
La  Merced,  of  the  same  city,  and  some  of  the  noted  organs  in  the 
principal  cities  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Hamill  acquu-ed  the  art  in  New  York  city  in  1845,  and  is 
thoroughly  experienced  and  skillful  in  the  manufacture  of  these  noble 
instruments. 

IVERS  &  POND  PIANO  CO. 

W.  H.  Ivers  began  business  in  Dedhani,  Mass.,  in  1876,  and  the 
present  company  was  formed  in  September,  1880.  The  following  year 
they  moved  to  Cambridgeport,  and  occupied  the  building  on  Albany 
Street  where  W.  H.  C.  Badger  &  Co.  are  now  located.  The  same 
year  they  built  a  portion  of  their  present  factory  on  the  corner  of 
Main  and  Albany  streets,  one  hundred  feet  long,  fifty  feet  wide, 
and  five  stories  high.  In  1883  they  added  to  this  another  section  one 
hundred  feet  by  fifty,  six  stories  high,  and  in  1886  a  final  addition 
seventy  feet  by  sixty,  and  at  the  same  time  raised,  the  first  factory 
another  story. 

When  the  company  began  business  in  Cambridge  the  output  was 
from  six  to  ten  pianos  each  week,  and  about  twenty  men  were  em- 
ployed, with  an  average  pay-roll  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  per  annum. 
The  capacity  of  their  factory  at  this  time  is  from  twenty-five  hundred 
to  three  thousand  pianos  per  annum.  One  hundred  and  seventy-five 
men  are  employed,  and  the  annual-pay  roll  is  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  Boston  warerooms  were  located  on  the 
ground  floor  of  the  Masonic  Temple  from  1886  to  1895.  Since  the 
Temple  was  burned  they  have  occupied  large  rooms  at  114  Boylston 
Street. 

The  Ivers  &  Pond  Co.  have  been  successful  from  the  start,  and  they 
at  this  time  own  the  factory  and  real  estate  which  they  occupy.  On 
Februarj'  1,  1896,  they  reported  an  undivided  surplus  of  three  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars. 

The  officers  of  the  company  are  as  follows  :  William  H.  Ivers,  presi- 
dent ;  George  A.  Gibson,  secretary  and  treasurer ;  Handel  Pond,  general 
manager ;  John  B.  Dayfoot,  superintendent. 

THE  GEORGE  W.  SEAVERNS  PIANO  ACTION  CO. 
The  business  was  established  in  1851  by  George  W.  Seaverns  in  a 
building  on  State  Street  known  as  Osborn's  mill.     Twice  it  was  seri- 
ously interrupted  by  fire,  once  in  1855  and  again  in  1874.     In  the 
latter  year  Mr.  Seaverns  decided  to  seek  larger  quarters,  and  accord- 


344  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

ingly  leased  a  portion  of  the  Greely  mill,  their  present  location.  The 
business  increased  so  rapidly  that  they  were  obliged  to  lease  the  ad- 
joining buildings,  where  they  now  have  an  extensive  plant. 

In  1889  the  business  was  incorporated  under  its  present  name,  with 
a  capital  of  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  company  consists  of  George 
W.  Seaverns  president,  with  Frank  H.  and  Walter  G.  Seaverns  as 
directors. 

The  Seaverns  actions  have  been  placed  in  more  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  pianos,  and  are  used  by  many  of  the  leading  piano 
manufacturers  in  the  United  States. 

THE  STANDARD  ACTION  CO. 
David  A.  Barber,  George  Bates,  and  Willis  Mabry  began  the  manu- 
facture of  pianoforte  actions  under  the  above  firm  name  January  1, 
1889.  In  1890  Horace  T.  Skelton  was  admitted  an  equal  partner ; 
the  firm  has  remained  unchanged  since  that  date.  The  product  of  the 
house  is  sold  aU  over  the  Union  where  pianos  are  made.  The  volume 
of  business  has  increased  rapidly,  and  there  are  at  present  one  hundred 
employees  on  the  pay  list.  The  present  capacity  is  seventy-five  hun- 
dred actions  per  year.  The  factory  is  located  on  the  Allen  &  Endicott 
Building  Co.'s  estate  bordering  on  Main  and  Osborn  streets.  The 
facilities  of  the  concern  will  be  doubled  during  this  present  year. 

DANIEL  E.  FRASIER. 

In  1866  Daniel  E.  Frasier  and  Alpheus  K.  Smith  formed  a  partner- 
ship and  began  the  manufacture  of  pianoforte  hammer  covers.  In 
1885  Mr.  Smith  retired  from  the  firm,  and  the  business  has  since  been 
conducted  by  Mr.  Frasier. 

The  material  used  for  hammer  covers  is  imported  from  Leipzig, 
Germany ;  the  goods  manufactured  are  sold  to  the  leading  houses  in 
both  the  East  and  the  West. 

GEORGE  R.  OLIVER. 
Mr.  Oliver  began  the  manufacture  of  piano  cases  in  Cambridgeport 
in  1888 ;  his  business  has  since  increased  rapidly,  and  he  now  employs 
about  fifty  men. 

SYLVESTER  TOWER. 
The  group  of  factory  buildings  145  Broadway,  Cambridgeport,  is 
owned  by  Sylvester  Tower,  and  the  business  conducted  is  the  manu- 
facture of  piano  keys  and  organs.     A  considerable  number  of  men  are 
employed. 

C.  A.  COOK  &   CO. 
are  manufacturers  of  piano  stools  and  taborets.     Their  factory  is  on 
Osborn  Street,  Cambridgeport. 


BOILERS  AND  MACHINERY.  345 


MACHINERY  AND   BOILER  MANUFACTURE. 

EDWARD  KENDALL  &  SONS. 

Edward  Kendall,  the  senior  menaber  of  this  firm,  with  John 
Davis,  of  Cambridge,  originated  the  business  in  1860,  under  the  firm 
name  of  Kendall  «fe  Davis.  This  partnership  continued  for  several 
years,  when  Mr.  Davis  withdrew,  and  soon  after  George  B.  Roberts,  of 
Cambridge,  became  associated  with  Mr.  Kendall,  forming  a  partner- 
ship known  as  Kendall  &  Roberts,  which  continued  for  more  than 
twenty  years.  The  recognized  superior  quality  of  their  work  secured 
for  the  film  a  prominent  position  among  the  leading  concerns  in  their 
line  in  this  country.  This  fact,  together  with  the  rapid  development 
of  manufacturing  in  New  England  after  the  war,  caused  their  busi- 
ness to  increase  I'apidly,  and  their  shops  were  almost  always  running 
at  full  capacity,  a  fact  which,  on  account  of  the  comparatively  crude 
methods  employed  in  the  manufacturing  of  boilers  in  those  days,  could 
not  be  kept  quiet.  It  was  remarked  some  years  ago  by  a  prominent 
clergyman  of  Cambridge,  that  the  rattling  of  the  windows  in  some 
newly  purchased  street-cars  was  almost  as  noisy  as  Kendall  &,  Rob- 
erts's boiler  works.  They  furnished  steam  plants  for  many  of  the 
largest  manufacturing  establishments  in  New  England,  and  also  sent 
their  boilers  to  all  parts  of  the  country. 

In  1887  Mr.  Roberts  retired  from  the  firm,  selling  his  interest  in 
the  business  to  Mr.  Kendall,  and  since  that  date  the  business  has  been 
carried  on  by  the  present  firm,  the  members  of  which  are  Mr.  Edward 
Kendall  and  his  sons,  George  F.  and  James  H.  They  have  reorgan- 
ized their  entire  plant,  erecting  new  and  larger  buildings,  and  replac- 
ing their  old  machines  with  new  ones  of  the  latest  and  most  approved 
types.  Their  shops  have  a  floor  area  of  about  forty-five  thousand 
square  feet,  and  their  present  capacity  is  more  than  twice  what  it  was 
when  they  succeeded  to  the  business. 

The  volume  of  their  business  has  steadily  increased,  and,  when  run- 
ning at  fuU  capacity,  they  employ  about  two  hundred  men,  and  their 
consumption  of  iron  and  steel  last  year  amounted  to  about  six  thousand 
tons.  Although  there  have  been  many  extensive  concerns  in  this  kind 
of  manufacturing  organized  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  Edward  Ken- 
dall &  Sons  still  occupy  a  position  among  the  largest  and  most  reliable. 

They  have  given  especial  attention  to  boilers  constructed  for  high 
pressures,  such  as  are  used  for  the  largest  mills,  in  connection  with 
their  compound  and  triple  expansion  engines.  For  this  purpose  they 
build  horizontal  tubular  boilers,  and  also  upright  boilers,  such  as  the 
"  Manning  "  and  other  designs. 

Notwithstanding  the  local  competition  in  other  parts  of  the  country, 


346  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

they  still  secure  orders  from  industries  of  various  kinds  in  all  quar- 
ters, from  the  copper  and  iron  mines  of  Lake  Superior  to  the  cotton, 
lumber,  and  sugar  mills  of  the  South  and  West.  They  have  also  sent 
their  boilers  across  the  Pacific  to  China,  and  across  the  Atlantic  as 
far  east  as  Constantinople,  and  also  to  South  America. 

BARBOUR,  STOCKWELL  CO. 

The  Barbour,  Stockwell  Co.  is  the  result  of  the  consolidation  of  the 
business  of  three  separate  firms. 

The  firm  of  Allen  &  Endicott  was  established  about  forty  years 
ago  by  Caleb  C.  Allen  and  Henry  Endicott.  They  were  at  first 
located  in  Boston  on  North  Grove  Street,  where  they  built  engines 
and  boilers,  and  carried  on  a  general  machine-shop  business. 

In  1858  they  purchased  property  on  Main  Street,  at  the  corner  of 
Osborn  Street,  in  this  city,  which  had  been  for  some  time  owned  and 
occupied  by  Davenport  &  Bridges,  car  buildei'S.  Their  works  were 
moved  out  from  Boston,  and  they  remained  at  this  place  until  1873, 
when  they  disposed  of  the  business  but  retained  their  ownership  in 
the  real  estate.  The  new  firm  was  known  as  Morrill  &  Hooker,  and 
consisted  of  Alfred  Morrill  and  Henry  Hooker,  both  of  Cambridge. 

In  1878  Mr.  Allen  purchased  the  interest  of  Mr.  Hooker  for  his 
son,  Albert  F.  Allen,  and  the  firm  became  Morrill  &  Allen.  On  the 
death  of  Albert  F.  Allen,  Mr.  Morrill  continued  the  business  under 
the  name  of  Alfred  Morrill  &  Co.,  until  1890,  when  he  retired  from 
active  business,  and  transferred  the  good-will,  stock,  tools,  and  fixtures 
to  Barbour  &  Stockwell. 

The  Cambridge  Railroad  was  built  while  the  business  was  in  the 
hands  of  Allen  &  Endicott,  and  they  were  called  upon  to  furnish  a 
large  part  of  the  track  material  used.  The  building  of  other  roads 
rapidly  followed,  and  the  activity  in  this  field  added  a  permanent  and 
important  branch  to  their  already  large  and  successful  business. 

The  old  firm  of  Denio  &  Roberts  was  started  in  Boston  about  1850, 
and  for  many  years  carried  on  business  in  different  places  at  the  West 
End.  They  were  the  first  to  build  a  machine  for  cutting  crackers 
and  biscuits,  and  for  a  long  time  their  machines  were  the  only  ones 
on  the  market  or  in  general  use.  A  few  of  the  machines  built  by 
them  are  still  in  use  in  small  bakeries,  but  the  greater  part  of  them 
have  long  since  been  supplanted  by  those  of  modern  construction.  As 
the  manufacturers  of  bakery  products  began  to  educate  the  public 
taste  by  supplying  a  better  quality  and  a  far  greater  variety  of  goods, 
their  business  increased  very  rapidly,  and  the  old  machines  were  not 
accurate  enough,  nor  of  sufficient  capacity  to  meet  the  increased  de- 
mand.    This  led  to  many  improvements,  and  developed,  by  the  usual 


BAKING  MACHINES.  347 

processes  of  evolution,  machines  that  are  little  short  of  marvelous  in 
these  respects.  Those  not  familiar  with  the  methods  practiced  in  a 
well-equipped  modern  bakery  have  but  little  idea  of  the  extent  to 
which  machinery  is  used,  or  of  the  great  changes  that  have  been 
wrought  by  it  in  the  baker's  art  since  the  days  of  our  grandfathers. 
Then  the  skill  of  an  operative  lay  in  his  ability  to  turn  out  a  small 
quantity  and  a  very  limited  variety  of  goods  with  his  own  hands,  and 
such  simple  hand  implements  as  are  familiar  to  all  good  housewives. 
To-day  there  is  little,  and  in  most  bakeries  no  hand  work  done,  and 
the  skill  of  a  mechanic  lies  in  his  knowledge  of  the  machines,  and  how 
to  get  from  them  the  largest  amount  and  the  highest  quality  of  goods 
they  are  capable  of  producing. 

The  business  of  Denio  &  Roberts  changed  hands  several  times,  and 
competitors  arose  in  the  West  and  elsewhere,  but  each  of  the  succes- 
sive owners  of  the  concern  in  Boston  added  something  to  the  efficiency 
of  the  machinery  built  by  it,  —  indeed,  they  were  forced  to  do  so, 
because  in  order  to  live  they  had  to  be  progressive. 

In  1886  it  passed  from  the  hands  of  W.  O.  Taylor  Co.  into  those 
of  Barbour  &  Stockwell,  —  Walworth  O.  Barbour,  of  Cambridge, 
and  Frederic  F.  Stockwell,  of  Somerville,  who  continued  the  busi- 
ness at  No.  11  Chardon  Street,  Boston. 

The  firm  of  Walworth  O.  Barhour  &  Co.  was  founded  in  1882,  and 
consisted  of  Mr.  Barbour,  Alfred  Morrill,  and  Albert  F.  Allen,  all 
of  Cambridge.  Previous  to  that  time  the  Walworth  Manufacturing 
Co.  had  occupied  the  greater  part  of  the  building  owned  by  Allen  & 
Endicott,  but  they  had  moved  to  the  new  works  purchased  by  them 
at  South  Boston.  Mr.  Barbour  had  been  in  their  employ  for  about 
eight  years  as  clerk  and  paymaster.  This  office  he  resigned  to  take 
charge  of  the  affairs  of  the  new  firm.  The  foundry  just  vacated  by 
the  Walworth  Manufacturing  Co.  was  leased  of  Messrs.  Allen  & 
Endicott,  and  a  general  jobbing  business  in  gi'ay  iron  castings  was 
started. 

On  the  death  of  Mr.  Allen  his  interest  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Morrill,  and  on  Mr.  Morrill's  retirement  he  disposed  of  all  his 
share  in  the  foundry  to  Mr.  John  P.  Winlock,  who  had  for  seven  or 
eight  years  been  foreman  of  the  foundry. 

In  1 890  the  foundry,  the  Allen  &  Endicott  business  in  Cambridge, 
and  the  old  Denio  &  Roberts  business  in  Boston,  were  merged  into 
one  concern  under  the  name  of  Barbour,  Stockwell  &,  Co.  Contem- 
plated improvements  in  the  building  of  Messrs.  Allen  &  Endicott,  as 
well  as  the  necessities  for  larger  facilities  for  turning  out  work,  forced 
the  concern  to  seek  new  quarters. 

A  lot  of  land  containing  a  little  over  two  acres,  and  bounded  by 


348  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Broadway,  Market,  Clark,  Hampshire,  and  Davis  streets  was  pur- 
chased, and  buildings  erected,  as  foUows  :  — 

A  foundry  175  by  75  feet,  a  machine  shop  52  feet  wide  and  300 
feet  long  on  the  first  floor,  150  feet  on  the  second  and  third  floors,  and 
a  wareroom  and  pattern  storage  building,  160  by  60  feet,  three  stories 
high.  The  new  quarters  were  ready  for  occupancy  by  the  spring  of 
1891.  The  machinery  from  the  Boston  shop,  as  well  as  that  from  the 
foundry  and  shop  in  Cambridge,  was  moved  in  and  set  up. 

In  1893  the  firm  was  incorporated  under  the  laws  of  Massachu- 
setts, under  the  name  of  Barbour,  Stockwell  Co. 

Various  causes  have  combined  to  bring  about  a  rapid  increase  in 
the  volume  of  business  since  the  consolidation  was  effected.  The 
increase  in  the  last  five  years  has  been  more  than  one  hundred  per 
cent.,  a  large  part  of  which  is  due  to  the  impetus  given  to  street  rail- 
way building  by  the  introduction  of  electricity  as  a  motive  power. 
With  the  new  system  heavier  cars  were  brought  into  use,  and  the  old 
track,  which  had  been  good  enough  for  horse-car  service,  was  found 
to  be  altogether  too  light  for  the  heavier  cars  and  increased  speed  of 
the  new  method. 

It  soon  became  necessary  to  replace  all  the  tracks  with  heavier  rail, 
and  new  and  improved  types  of  special  work  replaced  the  old  as 
rapidly  as  they  could  be  procured  and  laid.  Nor  was  the  demand  for 
new  material  confined  to  the  old  roads.  New  enterprises  in  street 
railway  building  were  inaugurated  in  every  section  of  the  country, 
and  this  soon  became  a  favorite  form  of  investment. 

While  this  company  furnishes  but  a  small  part  of  the  great  aggre- 
gate of  the  material  used  in  this  industry,  and  has  to  meet  the  compe- 
tition of  much  larger  concerns  in  the  West,  still  it  has  a  large  and 
growing  trade  in  this  class  of  work. 

In  the  foundry  it  has  a  capacity  of  thirty  to  forty  tons  of  gray  iron 
casting  a  day,  and  furnishes  a  large  amount  of  cast  iron  work  to  the 
machinery  and  building  trades  of  Boston  and  vicinity.  In  the  machine 
department  it  designs  and  builds  a  great  variety  of  special  machinery, 
and  does  a  general  jobbing  and  repair  business.  The  number  of  men 
employed  varies  with  the  season,  from  two  to  three  hundred,  and  the 
pay-roll  from  two  to  three  thousand  dollars  a  week. 

RAWSON  &  MORRISON  MANUFACTURING  CO. 

The  Rawson  &  Morrison  Manufacturing  Co.  are  designers,  pa- 
tentees, and  manufacturers  of  hoisting-engines,  coal-handling  ma- 
chinery, boilers,  stationary  engines,  electric  hoists,  fertilizer  dryers, 
hydraulic  pumps  and  presses,  special  and  general  machinery. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  Boston  was  the  birthplace  of  the  port- 
able hoisting-engine.      As  early  as  1835  the  necessity  for  handling 


Trzr^^-^ 


^  ^.-^ 


HOISTING-ENGINES  AND  BRIDGES.  349 

weights  by  other  than  manual  labor  forced  itself  upon  contractors, 
pile-drivers,  and  bridge-builders.  These  industries  early  began  to 
assume  vast  proportions,  and  it  was  to  supply  their  demands  that  the 
first  hoisting-engine  was  manufactured  in  this  vicinity.  Hittinger, 
Cook  &  Co.,  of  Charlestown,  were  the  first  to  design  and  manufacture 
this  class  of  engines,  and  did  a  large  business  during  the  existence  of 
the  firm.  From  their  shops  was  graduated  George  W.  Rawson,  a  nat- 
ural mechanic  and  inventor.  He  formed  a  partnership  with  Michael 
Hittinger  (Hittinger,  Cook  &  Co.),  under  the  firm  name  of  Rawson 
&  Hittinger,  and  began  business  at  No.  72  Main  Street,  Cambridge- 
port.  They  carried  on  a  large  business  during  and  after  the  war, 
manufacturing  annually  about  two  hundred  engines,  ranging  in  price 
from  six  hundred  to  three  thousand  dollars  each. 

In  the  year  1884  Mr.  Rawson  and  John  G.  Morrison  established 
the  firm  of  Rawson  &  Morrison,  and  located  at  No.  29  Main  Street 
(West  Boston  Bi'idge).  Owing  to  the  many  years  spent  by  Mr.  Raw- 
son  in  manufacturing  and  improving  the  line  they  represented,  they 
were  enabled  to  bring  their  productions  to  a  higher  degree  of  per- 
fection. Being  protected  by  numerous  letters-patent,  they  were  in  a 
position  to  offer  to  their  customers  original  and  improved  engines  and 
machinery,  constructed  to  meet  the  varied  requirements. 

In  the  year  1883  they  began  a  series  of  experiments  with  a  view  to 
securing  a  form  of  steam-shovel  and  apparatus  adapted  to  the  general 
discharging  of  vessels  engaged  in  coal  transportation.  These  experi- 
ments resulted  favorably,  and  their  method  has  been  adopted  by  many 
of  the  leading  coal  merchants  and  railroads  from  Maine  to  California. 

Mr.  Rawson  died  October  17,  1893,  and  the  business  has  since  been 
continued  by  Mr.  Morrison,  without  change  of  firm  name.  It  has 
recently  reached  such  proportions  as  to  demand  increased  facilities, 
and  a  modern  steel  frame  building,  two  stories,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  by  sixty,  has  been  erected.  This  addition  is  especially  adapted  for 
handling  heavy  work,  and  is  fitted  with  electric  cranes  and  the  most 
modern  machinery  and  tools.  They  at  present  employ  one  hundred 
and  fifty  mechanics. 

The  company  was  incorporated.  May,  1896,  with  a  paid-in  capital 
of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars. 

BOSTON  BRIDGE  WORKS. 

The  Boston  Bridge  Works,  located  on  Sixth,  Ninth,  Rogers,  and 
Binney  streets,  was  established  by  D.  H.  Andrews,  the  present  propri- 
etor, in  June,  1876. 

The  business  was  begun  on  Main  Street,  in  a  building  belonging  to 
the  then  existing  firm  of  Kendall  &  Roberts,  at  the  spot  where  the 
office  of  Edward  Kendall  &  Sons  now  stands. 


360  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Bridge-inanufactui'ing  in  Boston  or  vicinity  previous  to  that  time 
had  not  been  successful,  and  the  modest  beginning  of  the  Boston 
Bridge  Works  gave  ample  opportunity  to  study  and,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, avoid  the  causes  of  previous  failure.  The  gi'owth  of  the  business 
was  not  at  first  rapid,  but  it  was  steady  until,  in  the  early  spring  of 
1881,  it  had  outgrown  the  accommodations  afforded  by  the  buildings 
and  grounds  first  occupied.  After  a  most  exhaustive  examination  of 
the  facilities  afforded  by  other  regions  sufficiently  near  Boston,  it  was 
decided  that  no  other  spot  combined  so  many  advantages  as  are  united 
at  the  present  location. 

The  Boston  Bridge  Works  produce  steel  or  iron  railroad  and  high- 
way bridges,  with  fixed  or  movable  spans  for  drawbridges  of  every 
description  or  requirement,  —  steel-roof  trusses  and  coverings,  steel 
building-frames  and  complete  steel  buildings,  locomotive  turn-tables, 
and  all  kinds  of  structural  frames  requii'ed. 

The  works  cover  about  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  square  feet 
of  ground,  and  are  completely  equipped  with  modern  machinery  for  a 
bridge-building  plant.  Last  year  they  turned  out  and  shipped  about 
eight  thousand  tons  of  finished  material. 

Among  the  notable  bridges  built  by  the  Boston  Bridge  Works  in 
this  vicinity  may  be  mentioned  the  Harvai'd  Bridge,  from  Cambridge 
to  Boston,  and  the  Dover  Street  Bridge  and  Boylston  Street  Bridge,  in 
Boston.  These  works  also  produced  the  majority  of  the  largest  rail- 
road bridges  in  New  England,  and  have  furnished  the  steel  framework 
of  several  large  and  notable  buildings,  among  which  may  be  named 
the  new  Worthington  building  on  State  Street,  and  the  new  Tremont 
building  in  Boston.  The  number  of  men  usually  employed  by  the 
Boston  Bridge  Works  is  not  far  from  three  hundred,  but  at  times  has 
reached  over  four  hundred. 

The  foregoing  will  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  general  output  and  char- 
acter of  this  distinctively  Cambridge  enterprise,  and  it  shows  that  it  is 
quite  possible  to  produce  steel  structural  work  on  a  fairly  extensive 
scale  in  New  England,  despite  the  large  advantage  generally  conceded 
to  Pennsylvania  in  this  class  of  business. 

BROADWAY  IRON  FOUNDRY  CO. 
The  Broadway  Iron  Foundry  Co.  was  established  in  1864  by 
Henry  M.  Bird,  under  the  firm  name  of  Henry  M.  Bird  &  Co.,  and 
moved  to  its  present  location,  Broadway  and  Pelham  streets,  Cam- 
bridgeport,  in  1866.  Mr.  Bird  died  in  1890,  and  the  business  was 
continued  by  his  estate  to  January  1,  1896,  when  it  was  incorporated 
under  its  present  name.  The  capital  of  the  company  is  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  they  do  a  general  foundry  business,  leasing  the  land 
and  buildings  from  the  Bird  estate.     About  forty  men  are  employed. 


WIRE,  METAL,  MACHINERY.  351 

William  W.  Bird  is  president  and  treasurer,  and  Robert  C  Bird 
secretary. 

MORSS  &  WHYTE. 
The  firm  of  Morss  &  Whyte  occupies  a  lai'ge  brick  building  cover- 
ing thirty-five  thousand  square  feet  of  land  on  Franklin  Street,  Cana- 
bridgeport.  The  business  was  established  in  1840.  Charles  A.  Morss 
was  admitted  to  the  firm  in  1845,  and  since  1868  has  been  the  sole 
partner.  The  concern  was  removed  to  Cambridge  in  1885.  They 
manufacture  wire  cloths,  netting,  screens,  railings,  and  light  structural 
iron  work,  and  employ  fifty  hands. 

THE  SIMPLEX  ELECTRICAL  CO. 
was  incorporated  under  the  laws  of  Massachusetts  in  1895,  with  a 
capital  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  It  is  at  present 
located  with  Morss  &  Whyte,  and  employs  seventy-five  men.  The 
company  manufactures  insulated  wires  and  cables  for  electrical  pur- 
poses, including  line  work,  interior  wiring,  submarine  and  underground 
cables,  and  is  doing  a  very  large  business. 

THE  EASTERN  EXPANDED  METAL  CO., 
incorporated  in  1894,  mth  a  capital  stock  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars, 
is  located  at  10  Franklin  Street,  Cambridgeport.  The  company  is  li- 
censee in  New  England  for  the  patents  on  expanded  metal,  and  is 
manufacturer  of  expanded  metal  lath,  and  contractor  for  fire-proofing 
on  the  expanded  metal  system,  including  lathing,  partitions,  protec- 
tions of  iron  beams,  elevator  shafts,  floors,  and  outside  walls.  Thirty 
men  are  employed. 

THE  AMERICAN  ELECTRIC  HEATING  CORPORATION 
is  also  located  at  10  Franklin  Street,  with  main  office  in  the  Sears 
Building,  Boston,  and  branch  offices  in  New  York  and  Chicago.  The 
corporation  has  a  very  heavy  capital,  and  is  controlled  by  a  syndicate 
of  Boston's  prominent  business  men.  The  company  owns  two  hundred 
and  fifty  patents  on  electric  heating,  and  is  developing  its  application, 
working  on  the  basis  that  the  field  is  as  great  for  electric  heating  as 
for  electric  lighting.     Employment  is  at  present  given  to  twenty  men. 

HALL  BROTHERS. 
The  firm  of  Hall  Brothers,  machinists.  No.  724  Massachusetts  Ave- 
nue, was  established  in  business  in  1890,  with  a  capital  of  two  thou- 
sand dollars,  for  the  purpose  of  manufacturing  Hall's  Matrix  Drying 
Machine,  and  special  machinery  for  newspaper  stereotype  offices.  Dur- 
ing the  past  five  years  they  have  placed  machines  in  many  of  the  large 
newspaper  offices,  including  those  of  the  "  New  York  Sun,"  "  New 


352  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

York  Evening  Post,"  ''  Boston  Herald,"  "  Buffalo  Evening  News," 
"Chicago  Herald,"  "Philadelphia  Record,"  "Providence  Journal." 
They  also  manufacture  lubricant  for  motors  and  dynamos. 

RIVERSIDE  BOILER   WORKS. 

The  Riverside  Boiler  Works,  Cambridgeport,  occupy  three  build- 
ings at  50  Harvard  Street.  The  business  was  established  in  1891,  and 
the  company  is  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  galvanized  iron  range 
boilers.  The  works  have  a  capacity  of  fifty  boilers  per  day,  and  twenty 
men  are  employed. 

STANDARD  BRASS  CO. 

The  Standard  Brass  Co.  was  organized  and  incorporated  May, 
1894,  with  a  capital  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars.  The  factory  is  located 
at  Nos.  12-14  Osborn  Street,  Cambridgeport,  and  one  hundred  hands 
are  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  brass  work,  for  water,  steam,  and 
gas,  also  for  electrical  lamp  work.  The  value  of  the  product  is  about 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum.  Thirty  thousand  pounds 
of  brass  are  melted  in  the  foundry  each  month.  F.  J.  Paine  is  presi- 
dent, and  H.  F.  Hawkes  treasurer  of  the  company. 

BAY  STATE  METAL  WORKS. 

The  Bay  State  Metal  Works  was  incorporated  in  May,  1893.  The 
company  manufacture  copper  and  brass  goods  for  plumbers'  use.  The 
capital  of  the  concern  is  about  thirty-five  thousand  dollars,  and  em- 
ployment is  given  to  seventy-five  men.  The  value  of  the  product  is 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum.  The  officers  are :  Andrew 
W.  Fisher,  president ;  Joseph  J.  Devereux,  treasurer ;  F.  H.  Holton, 
general  manager.  The  works  are  located  on  Harvard  Street,  Cam- 
bridgeport. 

LAMB  &  RITCHIE. 

Making  galvanized  iron  pipe  was  a  slow  process  twenty-five  years 
ago,  and  the  product  was  unsatisfactory.  When  the  seam  was  made 
the  zinc  coating  cracked  or  broke  off  and  exposed  the  iron  or  steel  to 
rust ;  and  for  the  same  reason  the  short  pieces  could  not  be  success- 
fully soldered  together  to  make  pipe  of  suitable  length.  The  pipe  at 
best  was  unsightly,  and  it  was  a  good  workman  who  could  make  more 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  a  day. 

The  first  successful  steps  in  the  industry  were  not  attempts  to  make 
pipe  cheaper,  but  to  make  it  better.  The  two  objects  were,  however, 
closely  allied,  and  it  was  not  until  power  machinery  was  first  success- 
fully applied  to  making  the  different  kinds  of  improved  pipe  by  Lamb 
&  Ritchie,  of  Cambridgeport,  that  the  manufacture  began  its  remark- 
able growth. 

Like  many  other  modern  inventions,  there  is  but  little  for  the  opera- 


"A   TRIFLING  ACCIDENT."  353 

tor  to  do  ;  "  he  presses  the  button  and  the  machine  does  the  rest."  A 
plain  flat  sheet  of  metal  is  fed  into  the  rolls,  and  comes  out  in  a  few 
seconds  a  complete  pipe  ten  feet  long,  sometimes  round,  sometimes 
square  or  oval,  smooth  or  fluted,  sometimes  corrugated,  so  that  it  will 
expand  when  water  freezes  in  it ;  and,  most  wonderful  of  all,  some  of 
the  machines  produce  a  pipe  ornamented  and  strengthened  by  a  spiral 
seam.  All  the  galvanizing  or  zinc  coating  is  done  after  the  pipe  is 
made,  which  is  the  only  way  to  make  galvanized  iron  pipe  reliable. 

As  to  rapidity  of  production,  a  machine  will  run  out  more  pipe  in  a 
day  than  some  woi'kmen  could  make  by  hand  in  a  whole  winter.  A 
brief  account  of  a  trifling  accident  may  illustrate  the  productive  capa- 
city of  modern  sheet  metal  machinery.  A  machine  not  properly 
stopped  at  noon  broke  loose  when  the  engfine  started  up,  running  out 
pipe  across  the  room  in  which  it  stood  and  back  again  as  it  was  turned 
by  the  opposite  wall.  Before  it  was  discovered  it  had  nearly  fiUed  the 
room  with  pipe.  That  was  twelve  years  ago.  If  the  pipe  had  gone 
due  west  out  of  an  open  window  and  the  machine  had  continued  to 
run,  the  Ime  of  pipe  would  have  reached  by  this  time  twice  around  the 
world.  Some  of  the  firm's  machines  would  in  the  same  time  have  run 
pipe  three  and  even  four  times  around  it. 

It  may  be  asked  how  a  market  can  be  found  for  such  an  increased 
production.  The  answer  is,  first,  that  it  takes  millions  of  feet  each 
year  to  supply  the  thousands  of  tinsmiths  who  formerly  made  pipe 
themselves,  but  who  have  found  that  it  is  now  cheaper  to  buy  it  ready 
made  ;  and,  secoiid,  that  the  improved  quality  and  reduced  price  of 
the  machine-made  product  led,  as  in  other  industries,  to  an  extraor- 
dinary increase  in  its  use. 

This  Cambridgeport  firm  was  the  pioneer  in  the  industry.  It  still 
holds  the  lead  in  it,  in  spite  of  sharp  competition  and  heavy  tariff 
taxation  both  in  1890  and  1894.  Cambridgeport  is  an  admirable 
location  for  an  industry  which  uses  imported  materials.  The  ocean 
steamers  and  the  railroads  running  from  the  wharves  bring  these 
materials  from  the  producer  in  Great  Britain  to  the  factory  in  Cam- 
bridgeport for  a  very  few  cents  a  hundred  pounds.  It  is  in  connection 
with  cheap  materials  that  invention  and  enterprise  count  for  the  most 
and  secure  the  greatest  advantage.  Unless  prevented  from  buying 
where  their  materials  are  cheapest,  sheet  metal  industries  wiU  continue 
to  find  an  exceptionally  good  home  in  Cambridge.  The  partners  in 
the  firm  are  Henry  "W".  Lamb  and  David  A.  Ritchie,  and  the  factory 
is  located  on  the  corner  of  Albany  and  Portland  streets. 

THE  GEO.  F.  BLAKE  MANUFACTURING  CO. 

This  vast  enterprise  owes  its  success  to  the  inventive  genius,  business 
energy,  and  sterling  integrity  of  its  founder,  George  Fordyce  Blake, 
a  descendant  of  the  stanch  old  New  England  family  of  this  name. 


354  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

In  1862  Mr.  Blake,  while  employed  as  mechanical  engineer  of 
Peter  Hubbell's  brick-yards  at  Cambridge,  was  granted  a  patent  for  a 
water  meter.  About  that  time  Mr.  Blake  also  patented  a  machine  for 
pulverizing  the  clay,  which  could  not  be  worked  with  the  ordinary 
machineiy  ;  and,  later,  when  the  clay  pits  constantly  filled  with  water, 
he  devised  and  patented  a  steam  pumji,  which  operated  perfectly,  and 
succeeded  in  keeping  the  pits  free  from  water. 

In  1864  Mr.  Blake,  associated  with  Mr.  Hubbell  and  Mr.  Job  A. 
Turner,  commenced  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  these  pumps  and 
meters  in  a  little  shop  on  Province  Street,  Boston.  From  that  time 
to  the  present  the  growth  and  success  of  this  industry  have  been  unin- 
terrupted. In  1874  a  joint  stock  company  was  formed,  under  the 
name  of  the  "  Geo.  F.  Blake  Manufacturing  Co. ; "  in  1879  the  plant 
and  business  of  the  Knowles  Steam  Pump  Works,  at  Warren,  Mass., 
were  purchased ;  and,  in  1890,  the  entire  business  was  transferred  to  a 
syndicate,  which,  under  greatly  increased  capitalization,  now  continues 
this  business  in  the  name  of  "  The  Geo.  F.  Blake  Manufacturing  Co." 

In  1889-90,  after  several  changes  of  location,  incident  to  the  ever- 
growing business,  the  woi'ks  were  permanently  located  in  Cambridge. 
The  plant,  which  covers  five  and  a  half  acres,  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
finest  in  its  line  in  the  world.  The  buildings  were  specially  designed 
for  the  business,  and  are  in  the  very  best  style  of  modern  shop  con- 
struction. As  much  attention  has  been  given  to  the  health  and  com- 
fort of  its  employees  as  to  the  economy  of  production  and  the  ease  of 
future  extension.  • 

The  buildings  are  fully  equipped  with  traveling  cranes  and  special 
tools,  so  as  to  insure  the  manufacture  of  strictly  first-class  machinery 
at  the  lowest  possible  cost.  The  variety  of  pumping  machinery  manu- 
factured is  greater  than  that  of  any  other  single  company,  a  force  of 
ninety-six  draughtsmen  and  pattern-makers  alone  being  constantly 
employed  in  the  scientific  designing  and  preparation  of  new  lines  of 
machinery  for  every  branch  of  manufacturing  and  engineering  work. 
Tlie  total  number  of  employees  at  the  present  time  is  about  one 
thousand. 

The  pumping  machinery  is  shipped  in  quantity  to  every  quarter  of 
the  globe,  and  ranges  in  size  from  pumps  of  a  few  hundred  pounds 
weight  to  the  highest  grade  of  water-works  pumping  engines  weighing 
over  one  million  pounds  each.  Among  the  prominent  American  cities 
using  the  Blake  water-works  engines  may  be  mentioned  :  Boston, 
New  York,  Washington,  Camden,  New  Orleans,  Cleveland,  Mobile, 
Toronto,  Shreveport,  Helena,  Birmingham,  Racine,  La  Crosse,  Mc- 
Keesport,  etc.  A  partial  list  of  places  in  Massachusetts  includes : 
Cambridge,  Newton,  Brookline,  Woburn,  Natick,  Hyde  Park,  Dedham, 
Needham,  Wakefield,  Maiden,  Arlington,  Belmont,  Walpole,  Lexington, 


PUMPS,  BOILERS,  AND  PULLEYS.  355 

Gloucester,  Marlboro,  Weymouth,  North  Adams,  Maynard,  Mansfield, 
Randolph,  Foxboro,  Cohasset,  Lenox,  Chelsea,  Brockton,  Franklin, 
Provincetown,  Canton,  Stoughton,  Braintree,  and  Wellesley.  These 
engines  are  also  in  use  in  foreign  water-works,  as  for  instance  at  St. 
Petersburg,  Honolulu,  and  Sydney. 

The  new  United  States  Navy  is  practically  fitted  out  with  Blake 
pumps,  a  partial  list  including  the  following  vessels  :  Columbia,  New 
York,  Iowa,  Brooklyn,  Philadelphia,  Newark,  Chicago,  Boston,  Atlanta, 
Massachusetts,  Indiana,  Maine,  Puritan,  Miantonomoh,  Monadnock, 
Terror,  Amphitrite,  Katahdin,  Detroit,  Montgomery,  Marblehead, 
Yorktown,  Dolphin,  Machias,  Castine,  Petrel,  Vesuvius,  and  many 
others. 

Briefly,  the  thousands  of  patterns  cover  pumps  for  handling  any 
fluid  or  semi-fluid  or  liquor,  whether  acid  or  alkali,  under  all  condi- 
tions, from  the  lightest  pressure  up  to  twenty-five  thousand  pounds  per 
square  inch ;  and  similarly  any  gas  or  vapor  under  vacuum  or  various 
degrees  of  compression,  —  all  these  machines  being  driven  dii-ectly  by 
steam,  air,  or  water  pressure,  or  indirectly  by  steam  or  gas  engines, 
electric  motors,  water  wheels,  or  other  sources  of  motive  power. 

WILLIAM  CAMPBELL  &  CO. 

are  manufacturers  of  marine,  locomotive,  and  steam  fire-engine  boilers, 
gas  holders,  oil  and  water  tanks,  and  all  kinds  of  plate  iron  works. 
Their  works  are  located  on  Sixth  Street  near  Broadway. 

THE  ROBERTS  IRON  WORKS  CO., 
manufacturers  of  boilers,  has  a  large  establishment  on  Main  Street 
near  the  West  Boston  Bridge,  and  employs  a  considerable  number  of 
men.     Mr.  Roberts  was  for  many  years  a  member  of  the  firm  of 
Kendall  &  Roberts. 

MILLER  &  SHAW, 
manufacturers  of  portable  steam  hoisting-engines,  hydraulic  presses, 
and  general  machinery,  are  located  on  Sixth  Street,  Cambridgeport. 

WALTER  W.  FIELD, 
machinist,    formerly  of  the   firm  of  Parker,  Field  &   Mitchell,  is  a 
manufacturer  of  electric  hoists  and  the  Boston  Hoisting-Engine,  and 
is  located  on  Main  Street,  West  Boston  Bridge. 

JAMES  H.  ROBERTS  &  CO. 

are  manufacturers  of  machinery,  shafting,  pulleys,  and  hangers,  and 
occupy  a  large  building  on  the  corner  of  Second  and  Charles  streets. 
East  Cambridge.     Their  business  office  is  5  Lancaster  Street,  Boston. 


356  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

E.  D.  LEAVITT. 

The  largest  private  mechanical  engineering  office  in  the  United 
States  is  that  of  E.  D.  Leavitt,  which  occupies  two  floors  in  the  Holmes 
Block,  2  Central  Square.  A  large  force  of  engineers  and  draughtsmen 
is  constantly  employed. 

Machinery  and  boilers  (with  their  accessories)  exceeding  in  value 
more  than  ten  million  dollars  have  been  designed  by  Mr.  Leavitt  since 
establishing  his  office  in  Cambridge. 

The  designs  mentioned  include  the  great  machinery  plant  of  the 
Calumet  &  Hecla  Mine,  pumping-engines  at  Boston,  Lynn,  Lawrence, 
Louisville,  Ky.,  and  that  now  building  for  Cambridge,  as  well  as  the 
most  powerful  pumping-engine  in  existence,  which  is  used  by  the  Beth- 
lehem Iron  Company  in  forging  armor  plates  and  heavy  guns,  which 
develops  15,000  horse-power.  Cambridge  manufacturers  have  built 
some  of  the  most  important  work.  The  pay-roll  exceeds  forty  thou- 
sand dollars  per  annum. 

MANUFACTURING  CONFECTIONERS. 

The  manufacture  of  candy  in  Cambridge  was  begun  by  Robert 
Douglass  in  1826,  in  a  small  building  on  Windsor  Street.  He  removed 
soon  after  to  the  building  now  standing  on  the  corner  of  Main  and 
Douglass  streets.  Beginning  with  sales  from  a  wheelbarrow,  grinding 
and  refining  all  the  sugar  he  used,  his  business  increased  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  acquired  a  fortune.  At  one  time  he  had  teams  running 
over  a  large  portion  of  New  England. 

From  this  concern  sprang  the  oldest  candy  manufacturing  firm  now 
doing  business  in  Cambridge  at  this  time, 

B.  P.  CLARK  &  CO. 
Mr.  Clark  was  a  salesman  for  Douglass  from  1840  to  1848  ;  in  the 
latter  year  he  started  in  business  for  himself  on  Franklin  Street,  Cam- 
bridgeport.  In  1862  he  moved  to  Main  Street,  and  occupied  a  building 
which  stood  on  the  site  of  the  present  Prospect  House  Block.  In  1874 
he  built  the  factory,  443  Massachusetts  Avenue,  which  has  been  occu- 
pied by  the  firm  since.  The  building  is  seventy-five  by  fifty  feet,  five 
stories  high.  The  capital  used  in  the  business  is  from  seventy-five  to 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  about  fifty  hands  are  employed. 
The  partners  are  B.  P.  Clark,  Edward  C.  Wheeler,  and  W.  F.  Alley. 
After  forty-eight  years  of  service,  Mr.  Clark,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  still 
takes  an  active  interest  in  the  business. 


D.  M.  Hazek  &  Sons, 


GEOUGK    Ci.OSK,    CONFKCTIOXKI!. 


THE  CONFECTIONERY  TRADE.  357 

GEORGE  CLOSE, 
manufacturer  of  confectionery,  began  business  in  Cambridgeport  in 
1870,  and  in  1879  erected  the  brick  building  on  the  corner  of  Broad- 
way and  Windsor  Street,  where  he  employs  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  hands.  The  product  of  the  factory  is  about  three  tons  per  day, 
which  is  distributed  mostly  in  New  England.  The  plant  has  all  the 
latest  improvements  in  machinery  used  in  the  business,  and  represents 
a  capital  invested  of  about  seventy-five  thousand  dollax'S.  The  build- 
ing is  sixty-five  by  seventy-five  feet,  with  a  wooden  addition  thirty- 
five  by  forty  feet.  On  the  first  floor  are  the  offices,  receiving  and 
shipping  rooms,  and  the  three  floors  above  are  used  for  manufacturing. 
The  engine-room  is  located  in  the  wing. 

D.  M.  HAZEN  &  CO., 

manufacturers  of  confectionery,  began  business  in  1876.  In  1882  they 
purchased  fifty-six  hundred  feet  of  land,  and  a  two-story  building,  lo- 
cated at  42  Elm  Street,  to  which  they  added  an  ell.  In  1885  the  busi- 
ness had  increased,  and  the  building  was  further  enlarged.  In  1890 
more  land  was  purchased,  and  the  building  increased  to  eighty  by  forty- 
four  feet,  three  stories  high.  The  plant  was  furnished  with  the  latest 
improved  machinery ;  the  concern  now  employs  from  seventy-five  to 
one  hundred  hands,  and  makes  a  specialty  of  chocolates,  bonbons,  and 
caramels. 

H.  F.  SPARROW, 

manufacturer  of  fine  chocolates,  bonbons,  and  caramels,  began  business 
in  1887,  in  a  two-story  building  on  Windsor  Street ;  the  growth  of  the 
business  compelled  larger  quarters,  and  in  1891  the  present  factory,  on 
the  corner  of  Hampshire  and  Clark  streets,  was  erected.  The  building 
measures  one  hundred  and  ten  by  forty-five  feet,  and  has  four  stories 
and  basement.  By  close  attention  to  business  a  large  trade  over  the 
United  States  has  been  secured  ;  in  the  busy  season  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  hands  are  employed. 

THE  BAY  STATE  CONFECTIONERY  CO. 
are  the  successors  of  J.  S.  Bell  &  Co.,  who  first  engaged  in  manufac- 
turing confectionery  in  a  small  building  on  Pearl  Street,  in  May,  1890, 
moving  into  their  present  quarters,  141  Hampshire  Street,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1891.  The  present  company  purchased  their  plant  in  June,  1894, 
and  employ  about  sixty  hands.  The  building  is  seventy  by  forty  feet, 
of  four  stories,  all  of  which  are  fully  occupied.  Their  product  is  chiefly 
chocolate  confections,  and  is  valued  at  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
per  annum. 

The  total  capital  represented  in  the  manufacturing  confectionery 


358  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

trade  in  Cambridge  is  about  two  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  dollars ; 
average  number  of  employees,  four  liundred  and  sixty-five.  Sixty  mil- 
lion pounds  of  sugar  and  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  chocolate 
are  used  annually.  The  Cambridge  manufacturers  are  members  of 
the  National  Confectioners'  Association,  an  association  not  organized 
to  fix  prices,  but  whose  motto  is  "  purity  and  integrity." 

R.  H.  Leach,  Elm  Street,  manufacturer  of  lozenges,  employs  a  con- 
siderable number  of  people. 

Jensen  Brothers,  Norfolk  Street,  manufacture  a  general  line  of 
confectionery. 

SOAP  MANUFACTURERS. 

Cambridge  is  at  this  time,  and  has  been  for  many  years,  more 
extensively  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  soap  than  any  other  place 
in  New  England.  In  the  early  days  a  large  amount  of  this  commodity 
was  exported,  chiefly  to  the  West  Indies  and  South  America  ;  but  at  the 
present  time  the  manufacture  is  mainly  confined  to  the  home  market. 
The  business  of  soap-making  in  Cambridge  was  begun  by  Livermore, 
Crane  &  Whitney  in  1804.  Their  business  was  started  in  a  small 
way  in  a  building  in  the  rear  of  Main  Street,  and  was  continued  by 
Mr.  Livermore  on  the  same  spot  until  he  died,  in  1862.  There  are 
at  the  present  time  several  large  factories,  producing  in  the  aggregate 
many  million  pounds  per  annum. 

CURTIS  DAVIS  &  CO. 

The  establishment  of  the  firm  of  Curtis  Davis  &  Co.  dates  back  to 
the  year  1835,  Mr.  Curtis  Davis  being  its  founder.  In  the  year  1838 
Mr.  Davis  entered  into  partnership  with  Mr.  Alexander  Dickinson, 
under  the  firm  name  of  Davis  &  Dickinson,  with  a  capital  of  one 
thousand  dollars.  This  partnership  continued  until  1851,  and  was 
dissolved  in  that  year,  Mr.  Davis  purchasing  the  site  which  is  now 
occupied  by  the  present  firm. 

In  1864  Mr.  Davis  received  his  son-in-law  James  Mellen  into  part- 
nership, under  the  firm  name  of  Curtis  Davis  &  Co.  At  this  time 
the  works  had  a  capacity  of  about  three  tons  of  soap  per  day,  and 
employed  ten  hands,  with  a  weekly  pay-roll  of  about  one  hundred 
dollars.  Improved  methods  of  manufacture  were  adopted  and  im- 
proved machinery  was  installed  whenever  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  proprietors.  The  quality  of  their  products  was  improved  as  the 
state  of  the  art  advanced,  and  as  the  market  furnished  purer  raw  mate- 
rials from  which  to  make  them.  The  popular  and  well-known  brand 
of  "  Welcome  "  soap  was  established  about  1875,  but  had  been  regis- 
tered and  copyrighted  in  1874.  In  1883  the  firm  adopted  the  policy 
of  manufacturing  this  and  a  few  other  special  brands  of  laundry  soaps, 
less  than  half  a  dozen  in  number,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.     Just 


CuKTis  Davis  &  Company. 


SOAP  MANUFACTURERS.  359 

previous  to  this  time  they  were  putting  up  for  the  market  more  than 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  different  hrands.  They  believe  them- 
selves to  have  been  the  fii"st  firm  in  the  soap  business  in  this  country 
to  adopt  such  a  policy,  which  has  proved  to  be  a  sound  one,  as  it  is 
largely  followed  by  all  the  leading  manufacturers  of  to-day. 

The  partnership  was  terminated  in  1887  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Davis. 
The  business  was  continued  under  the  old  firm  name,  Mr.  Mellen 
taking  into  partnership  his  son,  Edwin  D.  Mellen,  who  had  previously 
been  engaged  at  the  works  as  chemist  and  superintendent.  The  works 
have  been  extended  in  late  years  by  the  addition  of  a  glycerine  plant, 
for  the  recovery  of  what  hatl  previously  been  a  waste  product,  and  the 
addition  of  a  machinery  department,  for  the  manufacture  of  machinery 
designed  at  the  works  and  patented  by  the  firm.  This  partnership 
was  recently  terminated  by  the  death  of  Mr.  James  Mellen,  and  the 
business  is  continued  at  the  present  time  under  the  management  of 
the  surviving  partner,  Mr.  E.  D.  Mellen. 

The  works  now  comprise  the  soap  works  in  the  old  original  build- 
ing, greatly  enlarged ;  the  glycei-ine  works,  the  boiler-house,  with 
boilers  equipped  with  coal  and  ash-handling  machinery,  and  other 
modern  improvements  ;  the  laboratory  building  containing  the  labora- 
tories ;  machine-shop,  and  stable.  All  these  buildings  have  a  floor 
area  of  about  two  acres.  The  present  capacity  of  the  soap  works  is 
twenty  tons  per  day,  and  that  of  the  glycerine  works  three  thousand 
pounds  per  day.  The  operation  of  the  works  employs  a  capital  of 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  eighty  employees,  with 
a  weekly  pay-roll  of  one  thousand  dollars.  The  annual  product  is 
valued  at  six  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

The  firm  contemplates  increasing  the  capacity  of  its  establishment 
in  the  near  future,  thereby  giving  opportunities  for  the  employment  of 
additional  capital  and  labor. 

JAMES  C.  DAVIS  &  SON. 

In  the  year  1835  the  late  James  C  Davis  made  his  first  venture  in 
the  soap  business  in  this  city,  gathering  the  material  from  house  to 
house,  which  was  a  custom  followed  by  every  soap-maker  at  that  time. 

In  1840,  by  dint  of  zeal  and  earnest  effort,  he  opened  a  factory  of 
some  pretensions,  and  in  1850  he  was  the  sole  proprietor  of  the  estab- 
lishment at  204,  206,  and  208  Broadway,  where  for  forty-six  years, 
or  up  to  date,  the  name  of  James  C  Davis,  or  James  C  Davis  &  Son, 
the  latter  appendage  being  added  in  1870  by  the  admittance  of  Mr. 
James  H.  Davis  as  a  member  of  the  concern,  has  appeared  on  the  now 
familiar  sign. 

On  March  14,  1888,  the  founder  of  the  business,  Mr.  James  C 
Davis,  died,  since  which  time  it  has  been  carried  on  by  his  successors. 
They  employ  sixty-five  hands. 


360  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Never  has  this  house  known  disaster,  save  the  burning  of  the  factory 
in  1891  and  the  death  of  the  founder.  The  spirit  of  progress  has 
ever  marked  its  endeavor,  not  only  locally,  but  at  large  in  New  Eng- 
land. Every  city  and  town  in  New  England  is  familiar  with  the 
famous  "  James  C.  Davis  Old  Soap,"  also  the  E.  A.  &  W.  Winchester 
Standard  Soap,  wliich  are  manufactured  by  this  house  by  the  same 
formula  as  that  used  by  the  old  concern  of  E.  A.  &,  W.  Winchester, 
when  they  established  the  business  in  1814. 

In  1894  they  added  to  their  present  capacity  a  glycerine  plant, 
which  converts  all  the  glycerine  from  the  spent  lyes  or  waste  products. 
The  Boston  office  is  at  3  Commercial  Street. 

LYSANDER  KEMP  &  SONS, 
Broadway  and  Davis  Street,  Cambridgeport,  manufacturers  of  soap 
and  soap-stock,  was  established  by  Lysander  Kemp,  at  Lincoln  Court, 
in  the  town  of  Cambridge,  in  1845,  and  in  1853  was  removed  to  its 
present  location.  In  1857  Mr.  Kemp  formed  a  partnership  with 
Aaron  Hale,  under  the  firm  name  of  Hale  «Sc  Kemp,  for  the  purpose 
of  manufacturing  family  soap  and  soap-stock.  In  1867  the  fii-m  was 
dissolved,  Mr.  Kemp  retaining  the  soap-stock  trade.  In  1872  his  sons, 
Horace  G.  and  James  H.  Kemp,  were  admitted  as  partners.  Lysander 
Kemp  retired  from  the  business  January  1,  1892,  and  his  sons  con- 
tinued it  under  its  present  firm  name.  In  January,  1893,  their  build- 
ing was  destroyed  by  fire,  but  was  immediately  replaced  by  the  present 
factory,  which  is  100  by  63  feet,  and  three  stories  high,  witli  power- 
house adjoining.  The  firm  employs  fourteen  men.  Their  product  in 
1895  was  1,259  tons  of  soap-stock,  458  tons  of  soap,  and  705  tons  of 
fertilizer  stock. 

JOHN  REARDON  &  SONS. 

The  soap  and  candle  business  of  John  Reardon  &  Sons  was  founded 
by  John  Reardon  in  1856,  the  factory  being  located  on  Erie  Street, 
Cambridgeport.  Candle  manufacturing  at  that  time  was  a  very  im- 
portant industry  in  New  England,  and  it  continued  to  be  such  until 
the  discovery  of  mineral  oil.  In  1863  Edmund  and  James  H.  Rear- 
don were  admitted  as  partners,  and  the  firm  has  since  continued  under 
the  name  of  John  Reardon  &  Sons.  The  firm  is  a  large  exporter  of 
tallow  to  England  and  the  Continent,  and  has  an  extensive  trade  in 
the  Southern  States  east  of  the  Mississippi,  in  addition  to  its  trade  in 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  England. 

It  was  at  one  time  extensively  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
oleomargarine  oil  and  butter.  The  present  works,  covering  an  acre 
of  ground  near  Fort  Washington,  were  erected  in  1878.  The  business  of 
making  oleomargarine  was  carried  on  until,  under  the  laws  of  the  State, 


SOAP  FOR  EXPORTATION.  361 

its  manufacture  was  prohibited.  The  manufacture  of  oleomargarme 
oil,  however,  is  still  a  large  trade  in  the  business  of  the  firm,  and  the 
product  is  sold  for  export  to  Great  Britain,  Holland,  Belgium,  and 
Germany. 

Within  a  few  years  a  glycerine  plant  has  been  added  to  the  works, 
by  which  the  glycerine  from  the  waste  lyes  is  recovered.  Dm-ing  the 
past  year  12,100,000  pounds  of  raw  material  were  used,  producing 
10,250,000  pounds  of  manufactured  goods.  From  90  to  110  persons 
are  constantly  employed,  and  the  annual  pay-roll  is  $53,000.  At 
present  the  firm  makes  laundry  and  toilet  soaps,  tallow,  oleomargarine 
oil,  stearine,  glycerine,  sal  soda,  ground  bone,  and  a  high  grade  of  fer- 
tilizer. John  Reardon,  the  founder  of  the  business,  died  in  1883,  at 
the  age  of  eighty-three  years.  James  H.  Reardon  died  in  1887.  The 
business  at  the  present  time  is  carried  on  by  Edmund  Reardon. 

C.  L.  JONES  &  CO., 
soap  makers,  172  Pearl  Street,  Cambridge.  —  Business  in  this  place 
was  started  about  1828  by  Charles  Valentine,  and  was  originally  con- 
fined to  slaughtering  cattle  and  packing  beef.  The  manufacture  of 
soap  was  added  in  order  to  work  up  the  taUow  which  did  not  readily 
find  a  market,  the  soap  being  sold  principally  for  export  to  the  West 
Indies  and  South  America.  The  history  of  the  business  from  1828  to 
1845  is  inrvolved  in  obscurity,  but  the  soap  business  was  only  a  side 
issue,  and  was  probably  carried  on  in  a  very  crade  way.  In  1845  Mr. 
Valentine  made  an  arrangement  with  Charles  L.  Jones,  who  was  then 
operating  a  small  factory  in  Boston,  to  take  charge  of  his  soap  busi- 
ness, and  the  firm  of  C.  L.  Jones  &  Co.  was  established,  Mr.  Valentine 
still  carrying  on  the  beef-packing  business  under  the  name  of  C.  Valen- 
tine &  Co.  In  1850,  on  the  death  of  Mr.  Valentine,  the  packing  busi- 
ness was  given  up,  and  Mr.  C.  L.  Jones  then  took  entire  charge  of  the 
soap  business,  associating  with  himself  two  of  his  brothers. 

The  business  at  that  time  had  grown  to  quite  large  proportions. 
Besides  the  manufacture  of  soap  for  export,  a  large  business  was  done 
with  the  woolen  mills,  and  in  1854  the  manufacture  of  candles  was 
added.  Business  kept  on  increasing,  and  the  buildings  were  enlarged 
from  time  to  time. 

In  1879  Charles  L.  Jones  died,  and  the  business  from  that  time  to 
this  has  been  carried  on  by  Henry  E.  Jones  and  Frank  H.  Jones. 

In  1881  the  demand  for  candles  had  dwindled  to  small  proportions, 
and  that  branch  of  the  business  was  given  up.  About  1886  the  factory 
was  remodeled,  and  now,  if  worked  to  its  full  capacity,  could  turn  out 
over  ten  million  pounds  a  year.  The  export  business,  which  was  for- 
merly the  principal  output,  is  now  a  very  small  item.  The  only  way 
the  export  orders  could  have  been  retained  would  have  been  to  move 


362  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

the  business  to  New  York  city,  and  the  firm  preferred  to  confine  its 
operations  to  a  domestic  market.  The  product  of  the  factory  is  now 
sold  principally  in  New  England  and  New  York  State. 

The  utmost  care  is  taken  in  the  manufacture  of  the  various  brands 
of  soap  turned  out  by  the  factory,  and  it  is  the  aim  of  the  owners  to 
make  nothing  but  the  best  of  its  kind.  The  buildings  consist  of  one 
wooden  one,  two  hundred  by  sixty  feet,  two  stories  high ;  one  of  brick 
for  storage,  one  hundred  by  forty  feet ;  and  a  one-story  building  for 
the  engine  and  boilers.  The  pay-roll  averages  about  twenty  thousand 
dollars  per  annum.  The  firm  has  an  office  in  Boston,  at  224  State 
Street,  and  employs  four  traveling  salesmen  to  dispose  of  its  product. 

Other  soap  manufacturers  are  Charles  R.  Teele,  Lincoln  Place,  and 
Carr  Brothers,  Lopez  Street. 


CARRIAGE  MANUFACTURE. 

HENDERSON  BROTHERS. 

Cambridge  for  many  years  has  been  more  or  less  noted  for  its 
industry  of  carriage  building.  The  most  extensive  carriage  business 
in  the  city  is  that  of  Henderson  Brothers,  No.  2067  Massachusetts 
Avenue,  North  Cambridge.  The  brothers,  John  J.  and  Robert,  began 
business  in  Cambridge  in  1856,  and  were  the  pioneers  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  carriage  repository  outside  of  Boston.  Four  years  ago 
their  factory  was  completely  swept  away  by  fire,  but  they  have  since 
rebuilt,  and  have  now  the  largest  carriage  repository  in  the  United 
States.  The  main  building  is  of  brick,  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  by 
eighty-five,  and  five  stories  high.  In  the  rear  of  the  repository  are 
three  factories,  one  two  hundred  and  twelve  by  fifty  feet,  and  two 
others  which,  combined,  have  an  equal  area. 

The  firm  manufacture  brakes,  drags,  barges,  wagons,  mail,  depot, 
hotel,  and  passenger  carriages.  In  their  repository  they  have  wagons 
of  all  kinds,  barges,  caravans,  hacks,  landaus,  coupes,  and  light  car- 
riages ;  also  sleighs  and  pungs. 

FRANCIS  IVERS  &  SON. 

The  business  of  F.  Ivers  &  Son  was  started  by  the  elder  Ivers  in 
1858  or  1859.  Their  factory  is  located  on  the  corner  of  Allen  Street 
and  Massachusetts  Avenue,  about  one  mile  from  Harvard  Square. 
The  buildings  are  well  adapted  for  their  purpose,  and  cover  an  area 
of  20,700  feet. 

The  firm  make  a  specialty  of  the  "  Ivers  "  buggy  and  light  road 
wagons.  Their  business  extends  over  the  United  States,  and  they 
have  a  large  export  trade. 


CARRIAGES  AND  STABLE  EQUIPMENTS.        ^  363 

Ivers  &  Son  were  the  first  to  apply  the  bicycle  wheel  to  the  racing 
sulky,  and  they  are  now  agents  for  Western  houses  who  make  that 
style  of  vehicle. 

HUGH  STEWART  &  CO. 
In  1878  Mr.  Stewart  began  the  manufacture  of  carriages  in  Boston, 
but  business  increased  so  rapidly  that  he  was  soon  compelled  to  seek 
larger  quarters.  He  removed  his  plant  to  Cambridgeport,  and  in 
1891  erected  the  factory  now  occupied  by  the  firm,  on  Main  Street, 
at  the  junction  of  Harvard  and  Sixth  streets.  The  same  year  he 
admitted  as  partner  his  former  bookkeeper,  J.  F.  Cutter.  The  firm 
do  an  extensive  business  in  the  manufacture  of  carriages,  and  have  a 
large  repair-shop  connected  with  the  factory. 

THE  NELSON  CARRIAGE  CO. 

The  Nelson  Carriage  Co.  was  established  by  its  present  proprietor, 
Joseph  L.  Nelson,  in  1891.  The  factory  is  located  at  Nos.  10  to  16 
Palmer  Street,  and  the  salesroom  is  in  Roberts  Building,  Harvard 
Square.  The  company  manufacture  a  general  line  of  carriages  and 
wagons,  and  employ  ten  to  fifteen  men ;  they  also  deal  in  harnesses, 
horse  clothing,  and  bicycles. 

ANDREW  J.  JONES. 
In  1846  Mr.  Jones  began  the  business  of  carriage  building  in  Cam- 
bridge, and  now  occupies  a  brick  building  on  the  corner  of  Church  and 
Palmer  streets,  where  he  manufactures  heavy  wagons  and  employs 
several  men.  The  upper  floor  of  his  factory  is  used  for  a  furniture 
storage  warehouse. 

CHARLES  WAUGH  &  CO. 
The  business  of  Charles  Waugh  &  Co.,  Nos.  442  to  450  Main  Street, 
Cambridgeport,  was  begun  in  1873,  under  the  name  of  Waugh  Bro- 
thers. The  present  company  was  formed  in  1884,  and  they  do  a  large 
business  as  builders  of  sleighs,  police  patrol  wagons,  carriages,  fight 
wagons,  heavy  caravans,  and  drags.  The  firm  also  handle  horse  cloth- 
ing and  stable  equipments.  A  considerable  number  of  men  are  em- 
ployed. 

CHAPMAN  CARRIAGE  CO. 
In  1829  Francis  L.  Chapman  began  the  business  of  carriage  build- 
ing, and  continued  the  same  until  the  time  of  his  death  in  1893.  His 
successors  are  George  O.  Rollins  and  George  M.  Church,  and  they 
carry  on  the  business  under  the  name  of  the  Chapman  Carriage  Co. 
Their  specialty  is  the  ''Chapman,"  "Goddard,"  and  "Stanhope"  bug- 
gies, but  they  make  to  order  carriages  of  all  descriptions.     The  Com- 


364  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

pany  is  located  at  No.  10  Brattle  Street,  and  has  large  repair-shops 
and  storage-rooms  for  carriages. 

The  other  carriage  manufacturers  in  Cambridge  are  :  Stewart 
Brothers,  George  R.  Henderson,  Cambridge  Carriage  Co.,  J.  A.  Hen- 
derson &  Son,  H.  F.  Fletcher  &  Co. 

FURNITURE   MANUFACTURE. 

Edwin  Hixon  was  undoubtedly  the  pioneer  in  furniture  manufac- 
turing in  Cambridge.  Beginning  in  1845,  he  carried  on  the  business 
for  many  years.  At  one  time  Cambridge  acquired  the  reputation  of 
being  a  furniture  centre  ;  and  although  the  volume  of  business  in  that 
line  has  been  largely  reduced,  there  are  at  this  time  several  extensive 
and  prosperous  concerns  in  the  city. 

KEELER  &  CO. 

Keeler  &  Co.,  manufacturers  of  fine  furniture  and  cabinet  work, 
are  located  at  the  corner  of  Second  and  Thorndike  streets,  East  Cam- 
bridge, with  warerooms  at  Nos.  81  to  91  Washington  Street,  Bos- 
ton, and  are  the  successors  to  the  widely  known  business  of  F.  Gel- 
dowsky. 

Mr.  Geldowsky  started  in  a  very  small  way  on  Utica  Street,  Boston, 
about  1862.  Two  years  later  he  moved  to  East  Cambridge,  where  he 
enlarged  his  business,  and  his  name  soon  became  known  over  the 
United  States  and  Canada  for  the  quality  and  style  of  his  work.  For 
twenty  years  he  ranked  preeminently  the  leading  manufacturer  of  fur- 
niture in  America.  In  1877  Mr.  Geldowsky  met  financial  reverses, 
and  shortly  afterwards  Messrs.  C.  P.  Keeler  &  Son  assumed  the  con- 
trol of  the  business,  retaining  Mr.  Geldowsky  as  manager.  They 
then  occupied  the  immense  plant  bounded  by  First,  Second,  Otis,  and 
Thorndike  streets.  January,  1884,  Messrs.  Keeler  &  Co.  opened  their 
large  retail  warerooms  at  Nos.  81  to  91  "Washington  Street,  leaving 
Mr.  Geldowsky  in  charge  of  the  manufacturing  business.  In  1888 
Messrs.  Keeler  &  Co.  again  took  control  of  the  factory,  Mr.  Geldow- 
sky continuing  in  their  employ  until  his  death  in  July,  1890.  During 
the  past  ten  years  they  have  made  a  feature  of  fine  cabinet  work,  and 
have  completed  order  work  from  special  designs  for  many  public 
buildings,  among  which  are  the  City  Hall,  Fall  River ;  State  House 
Extension,  Boston  ;  City  Hall,  Cambridge  ;  Norfolk  County  Court 
House,  Dedham  ;  and  Middlesex  County  buildings,  East  Cambridge  ; 
a  number  of  banks,  offices,  libraries,  and  armories. 

The  pi-esent  firm  of  Keeler  «&  Co.  is  composed  of  Alvin  F.  Sortwell, 
of  this  city,  special  partner,  and  Ruel  P.  Buzzell,  general  partner. 


FINE  FURNITURE.  365 


W.  C.  H.  BADGER  &  CO. 

W.  C.  H.  Badger  «fe  Co.,  furniture  manufacturers,  are  located  in  a 
large  brick  building  on  Albany  Street,  near  Massachusetts  Avenue, 
Canibridgeport.  The  members  of  the  firm  are  W.  C.  H.  Badger  and 
George  F.  Tyler,  who  are  the  successors  to  a  business  established  more 
than  fifty  years.  The  factory  is  two  hundred  by  fifty  feet,  and  five 
stories  high,  and  is  complete  in  every  department  for  the  manufacture 
of  furniture,  having  a  150  horse-power  engine,  latest  improved  drying 
apparatus,  and  storehouses  for  lumber  with  capacity  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  feet. 

The  firm  manufacture  only  the  fine  grades  of  furniture,  using  prin- 
cipally mahogany  and  quartered  oak,  and  when  in  full  operation  em- 
ploy about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  men.  They  have  a  large  trade 
all  through  New  England. 

A.  B.  &  E.  L.  SHAW. 

A.  B.  &  E.  L.  Shaw,  East  Cambridge,  are  makers  of  parlor,  church, 
and  lodge  furniture.  The  business  was  established  in  1780  by  Jacob 
Foster  &  Son,  and  has  been  continuous  since  that  date.  The  successors 
to  Jacob  Foster  &  Son  were  Charles  Foster,  1828 ;  Foster,  Lawrence 
&  Co.,  1833  ;  Edward  Lawrence,  1856  ;  Braman,  Shaw  &,  Co.,  1863 ; 
Shaw,  AppUn  &  Co.,  1877  ;  A.  B.  &  E.  L.  Shaw,  1887. 

The  old  firms  of  Foster,  Lawrence  &  Co.  and  Edward  Lawrence 
employed  convict  labor  at  the  Massachusetts  State  Prison  in  Charles- 
town,  but  when  Braman,  Shaw  &  Co.  succeeded  to  the  business  it  was 
removed  to  East  Cambridge.  For  the  past  ten  years  the  present  firm 
have  occupied  the  Geldowsky  factory,  and  they  employ  from  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  to  two  hundred  hands.  The  firm  do  the  largest  busi- 
ness in  the  manufacture  of  fine  upholstered  furniture  in  New  England, 
and  have  furnished  some  of  the  finest  clubs,  lodges,  and  hotels  in  the 
country,  among  the  latter  The  Niagara  at  Buffalo,  Hotel  del  Coronado 
of  San  Diego,  Cal.,  The  Imperial,  The  Netherlands,  and  The  Savoy  of 
New  York  city.  The  Walton  of  Philadelphia,  and  the  Jefferson  of 
Richmond,  Virginia,  and  they  now  have  the  contract  to  furnish  the 
new  Manhattan  of  New  York,  a  fourteen-story  building,  which  will  be 
run  by  Hawk  &  Wetherbee,  the  present  proprietors  of  The  Windsor  of 
New  York. 

IRVING  &  CASSON. 

Irving  &  Casson  have  been  located  in  East  Cambridge  about  fifteen 
years.  They  have  a  large  factory  at  the  corner  of  First  and  Otis  streets, 
and  employ  between  two  and  three  hundred  men.  They  make  fine  cus- 
tom cabinet  work,  mantels,  and  interior  finish  for  high-claiss  dwellings, 
and  have  a  large  business  in  St.  Louis,  Buffalo,  Chicago,  St.  Paul, 


366  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Washington,  Troy,  and  New  York.     Their  Boston  office  and  show- 
rooms are  at  150  Boylston  Street. 

ROURKE  &  KENNEDY. 
Rourke  &  Kennedy,  682  Massachusetts  Avenue,  are  the  successors 
of  Phillips  Brothers  &  Co.,  manufacturers  of  furniture.  The  firm  do 
a  large  business  throughout  New  England  in  desks,  bookcases,  plumb- 
ers' supplies,  Phillips's  folding-beds,  and  general  cabinet  work.  Their 
factory  is  well  equipped  for  taking  large  contracts. 

THE  OTIS  WOODWORKS, 
John  Quin,  proprietor,  is  located  on  Otis  Street,  East  Cambridge.    The 
concern  turns  out  a  large  amount  of  mouldings,  builders'  finish,  store 
and  office  fixtures,  drawer-cases,  and  washstands. 

A.  H.  DAVENPORT 
has  a  large  furniture  factory  on  Bridge  Street,  East  Cambridge,  with 
Boston  warerooms  on  Washington  Street. 

THE  D.  C.  STORR  FURNITURE  CO. 
is  located  on  Thorndike  Street,  corner  of  First. 

Among  other  furniture  manufacturers  are  G.  F.  Ericson,  maker  of 
wood  mantels,  cabinet  and  interior  work.  State  Street,  Cambridgeport ; 
Graves  &,  Phelps,  tables ;  T.  B.  Wentworth,  pulpits  ;  A.  M.  &  D.  W. 
Grant,  William  W.  Robertson,  P.  A.  Pederson,  and  Lee  L.  Powers, 
makers  of  cabinet  work. 

MISCELLANEOUS  MANUFACTURES. 

BOSTON  WOVEN  HOSE  AND  RUBBER  CO.i 
In  1870  Lyman  R.  Blake,  the  inventor  of  the  original  sole  sewing 
machine,  so  successfully  exploited  by  Gordon  McKay,  long  a  citizen 
of  Cambridge,  devised  a  machine  for  sewing  up  strips  of  rubber-coated 
canvas  into  hydraulic  hose.  This  machine  was  shortly  afterward  pur- 
chased by  Colonel  Theodore  A.  Dodge,  who,  having  been  placed  on  the 
retired  list  of  the  army,  had  taken  up  his  residence  in  Cambridge,  and 
the  manufacture  of  "  Blake  hose  "  was  begun. 

At  first  the  article  produced  was  acceptable  rather  from  its  cheap- 
ness than  from  its  solidity  ;  and  although  the  original  somewhat  flimsy 
garden  hose  gradually  grew  into  engine  hose  really  excellent  and  dur- 
able, and  although  the  one  place  in  the  hose  which  never  gave  out  was 

^  The  reader  is  indebted  for  this  interesting  description  of  the  Woven 
Hose  Co.  to  Colonel  Theodore  Ayrault  Dodge.  —  Editor. 


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cq 

WOVEN  HOSE  AND  RUBBER   CO.  367 

the  line  of  stitches,  the  public  was  apt  to  look  askance  at  the  seam, 
and  the  article  was  not  a  favorite. 

When,  therefore,  in  1872,  James  E.  Gillespie  approached  Colonel 
Dodge  with  the  drawings  of  a  loom  to  weave  multiply-tubular  fabrics, 
the  latter  was  quick  to  grasp  its  possibilities.  Theretofore  tubular 
goods  had  been  woven  only  on  flat  looms,  a  process  which  left  a  weak 
spot  along  their  edge.  It  had  been  impossible  to  "  beat  up  "  goods 
woven  in  the  round  form  so  as  to  make  them  sufficiently  solid,  and 
only  braided  round  fabrics  had  been  used.  As  a  first  construction, 
Gillespie's  loom  was  remarkable,  but  its  eighty  thousand  parts  made 
it  all  too  liable  to  break  down.  To  assist  Gillespie,  Colonel  Dodge,  in 
1873,  hired  a  young  machinist  named  Robert  Cowen,  and  from  that 
year  on  until  to-day,  when  he  is  vice-president  of  the  company  and 
superintendent  of  a  factory  where  a  thousand  men  and  women  are 
working  day  and  night  to  fill  orders,  Mr.  Cowen  has  been  the  soul  of 
the  enterprise,  the  inventor,  designer,  and  organizer  of  every  new 
manufacture,  and  the  one  who,  through  years  of  difficulty  and  disap- 
pointment, has  stood  by  his  employer  and  wrought  courageously  and 
energetically,  until  the  fitting  reward  has  in  due  time  come. 

Gillespie  soon  dropped  out,  and  for  a  number  of  years  Cowen's 
experiments  to  simplify  the  loom  resulted  only  in  outlay.  It  was  a 
brand-new  thing.  Old  loom  experts  predicted  failure  ;  old  firemen 
pronounced  the  hose  unpractical.  Although  some  fu*e  departments 
used  "  Boyd  "  hose,  a  cotton  fabric  riveted  together  like  leather  hose, 
and  then  rubber-lined,  it  was  hard  to  persuade  the  trade  that  rubber- 
lined  cotton  hose  was  suitable  for  garden  hose.  In  1873  Colonel 
Dodge  successfully  tested  the  first  length  ever  made  of  rubber-lined, 
multiply-woven  cotton  fire  hose  before  the  fire  commissioners  of  Bos- 
ton. It  had  been  made  on  the  Gillesj^ie-Cowen  loom  ;  but  though  the 
hose  itself  was  good,  it  was  so  difficult  to  persuade  the  fire  departments 
to  use  it,  that  Colonel  Dodge  was  frequently  taxed  with  Quixotism,  if 
not  outright  idiocy,  in  persisting  in  his  efforts.  For  at  least  ten  years, 
however,  these  efforts  went  on.  Dodge  and  Cowen  working  in  unison, 
but  with  heavy  financial  loss  to  the  former,  until  in  1880,  after  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  had  been  spent  in  experimenting, 
the  two  associates,  under  the  name  of  the  Boston  Woven  Hose  Co., 
began  a  legitimate  manufacture  in  a  very  small  way  in  two  rooms  in 
part  of  the  Curtis  Davis  Soap  Factory  on  Portland  Street,  with  only 
one  man  and  a  boy  to  assist.  Such  was  the  humble  origin  of  the  pres- 
ent extensive  manufactories.  In  the  first  year  some  fifteen  thousand 
feet  of  cotton  garden  hose  were  marketed,  —  about  a  quarter  as  much 
as  is  often  made  in  one  day  in  the  present  works,  —  and  the  hose 
proved  satisfactory.  Orders  began  to  come  in,  and  the  premises  and 
force  were  gradually  increased  and  the  machinery  perfected,  until  the 


368 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


business  was  so  promising  as  quite  to  outrun  the  capital  Colonel  Dodge 
could  afford  to  devote  to  it.  In  the  spring  of  1884  he  took  in  another 
associate,  and  Mr.  J.  Edwin  Davis  became  treasurer  of  the  new  cor- 
poration then  formed  with  a  capital  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand doUars,  but  retaining  the  old  name.  Mr.  Davis  has  ever  since 
been  treasurer  and  manager,  and  to  his  energy,  adaptability  to  his  new 
conditions,  and  unusual  business  intelligence,  as  well  as  to  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Cowen  and  he  have  worked  together  with  great  harmony,  is 
largely  due  the  exceptional  success  of  the  enterprise.  At  that  time  the 
business  had  grown  to  employ  some  sixty  hands,  and  was  occupying 
a  building  on  Broadway,  opposite  the  present  location  of  the  factory. 
In  1886,  however,  although  there  were  not  far  from  eighteen  thousand 
square  feet  of  floor-room  in  this  factory,  the  enterprise  had  grown  to 
so  considerable  a  size  that  it  was  determined  to  erect  a  plant  esjiecially 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  business,  and  the  old  Kinsley  iron  prop- 
erty, on  the  corner  of  Portland  and  Hampshire  streets,  was  purchased, 
and  a  substantial  brick  building  erected,  with  a  number  of  recon- 
structed outbuildings.  The  enterprise,  which  had  grown  to  require 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  in  1888,  was  now  incor- 
porated in  Massachusetts,  with  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars cash  capital.  In  1892  adjoining  land  was  bought,  and  a  new  and 
larger  mill  with  more  outbuildings  were  added.  In  1893  the  capital 
was  increased  to  six  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  following  table 
of  hands  employed  and  floor-space  occupied  best  tells  the  story  of  the 
growth  of  the  company  :  — 


Date. 

Employed. 

Floor  Surface. 

January 

1, 

1880 

7 

persons. 

3,060  square  feet. 

ii 

1( 

1881 

25 

(( 

(( 

1882 

35 

It 

ii 

1883 

40 

17,700  square  feet. 

(( 

t( 

1884 

59 

« 

11 

1885 

65 

.       (( 

u 

1886 

89 

u 

ii 

1887 

104 

58,831  square  feet. 

il 

a 

1888 

134 

(( 

a 

1889 

148 

(1 

a 

1890 

163 

<( 

a 

1891 

181 

(1 

a 

1892 

216 

(t 

a 

1893 

280 

178,765  square  feet. 

<l 

a 

1894 

366 

(i 

a 

1895 

422 

n 

1896 

975 

247,530  square  feet. 

While  the  original  manufacture  of  the  company  was  hydraulic  hose, 
-  still  one  of  its  largest  products,  the  annual  output  reaching  many 


NON-PUNCTURABLE  TIRES.  369 

million  feet,  —  the  energy  of  Mr.  Cowen,  responding  to  the  demand 
created  by  Mr.  Davis,  gradually  extended  the  scope  of  its  business, 
and  belting,  packing,  gaskets,  mould-work,  mechanical  goods  of  all 
kinds,  almost  everything  in  rubber  except  clothing  and  shoes,  brass 
fittings,  and  other  metal  goods,  became  staples  of  its  trade. 

There  is  probably  no  factory  in  America  where  there  is  at  work 
more  ingenious  machinery  not  known  elsewhere,  and  this  is  the  crea- 
tion of  Robert  Cowen,  aided  by  a  staff  of  old  and  young  employees, 
numbering  men  who  have  learned  by  hard  knocks,  men  who  have  been 
taught  at  the  Institute  of  Technology,  men  who  have  served  the  com- 
pany for  twenty  odd  years,  and  men  who  but  last  year  entered  its 
service.     Each  has  contributed  his  part. 

No  assumption  is  more  certain  in  America  than  that  a  man  who 
works  with  energy,  intelligence,  and  economy  will  eventually  succeed. 
Ill  luck  at  rare  intervals  negatives  this  assumption,  but  ill  luck  is  wont 
to  come  from  neglect  of  one  or  another  of  the  three  postulates,  usually 
the  last.  It  is,  in  fact,  this  certainty  of  success  which  makes  Amei-ica 
the  Eldorado  of  workmen.  In  the  case  of  the  Boston  Woven  Hose 
and  Rubber  Co.,  never-ceasing  push,  rare  intelligence,  and  judicious 
economy  have  been  fully  rewarded. 

In  1893  experiments  were  begun  in  bicycle  tires,  and  the  next  year 
a  good  many  thousand  tires  were  marketed ;  and  in  1895  still  more, 
both  "  Vici  "  tires  with  an  inner  tube,  and  "  Vim  "  hose-pipe  tires,  and 
the  latter  at  once  became  a  pronounced  success.  The  "  Vim  "  proved 
to  be  speedy,  non-puncturable  and  durable,  and  at  the  end  of  1895  the 
company  found  itself  almost  snowed  under  by  orders  for  1896. 

The  capital  stock  was  again  increased  by  anotlier  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars  cash,  —  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  all,  —  the 
force  at  the  factory  was  nearly  doubled,  and  part  of  the  machinery 
was  run  twenty-four  hours  a  day.  At  the  inception  of  this  memorial 
year,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  concern  within  the  limits  of  Cambridge 
is  employing  more  of  its  citizens  in  healthful  factory-rooms,  at  good 
wages,  and  with  reasonable  hours  of  work. 

There  are  within  the  factory  walls  a  well-equipped  laboratory,  a 
printing  and  lithographic  office,  and  a  machine-shop  employing  forty 
men.  Flat  looms  weave  the  peculiar  goods  for  the  bicycle  tires,  and 
circular  looms  turn  out  the  hose.  A  large  reclaiming  plant  is.  kept 
busy,  and  the  rubber  machinery  is  unsurpassed  in  the  world.  Perhaps 
as  high  a  compliment  as  can  be  paid  to  Robert  Cowen  is  that  during  all 
the  years  he  has,  as  superintendent,  been  helping  to  build  up  this  great 
industry,  he  has  never  had  a  strike,  a  shut-tlown,  or  a  lock-out,  and  no 
concern  has  more  employees  who  have  grown  gray  in  its  service. 
They  number  many  scores  of  men  and  women  who  have  worked  for 
it  from  a  dozen  to  twenty  years. 


370  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  line  in  Boston,  the  work  is  done  with  equal 
zeal  and  discretion.  Over  twenty  traveling  salesmen  and  thirty  office- 
employees  are  engaged  in  distributing  the  manufactures  of  the  com- 
pany, while  the  branch  stores  in  New  York,  Chicago,  St.  Louis, 
Denver,  and  San  Francisco  almost  double  this  staff.  It  is  not  often 
that  it  can  be  said  that  a  young  man  undertakes  the  management  of  a 
business  within  a  year  of  graduation  (Mr.  Davis  is  a  Harvard  '83 
boy),  and  builds  it  up  to  so  high  a  plane,  without  a  single  period  of 
relapse.  In  each  year  since  1882  the  annual  sales  have  increased, 
the  credit  has  bettered,  and  the  standing  of  the  concern  become  moi-e 
firm.  It  has  steadily  discounted  its  pui'chases  of  raw  material,  and 
even  during  panic  years  has  seen  no  day  when  it  had  to  ask  the 
renewal  of  a  note,  or  an  undue  favor  of  a  bank.  A  uniform  dividend 
of  eight  per  cent,  a  year  has  been  steadily  paid,  and  a  considerable 
surplus  put  into  new  buildings  and  machinery.  The  men  who  have 
made  the  concern  so  prosperous  are  Robert  Cowen  and  J.  Edwin 
Davis,  as  for  some  years  past  Colonel  Dodge,  though  retaining  the 
presidency,  has  been  much  absent,  and  has  exercised  only  an  advisory 
control.  Yet  his  juniors  insist  that  at  times  they  are  glad  to  rely 
upon  his  judgment,  matured  by  many  years  of  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  underlying  requirements  of  the  business,  and  they  are  unwilling  to 
permit  him  to  retire  from  the  helm. 

The  directors  have  been  unchanged  for  years  :  the  three  officers 
already  named,  and  Messrs.  J.  N.  Smith  and  Rhodes  Lockwood. 

In  the  average  mind  Cambridge  is  associated  with  the  shady  elms 
under  which  have  walked  and  studied  and  played  so  many  of  our 
foremost  citizens  ;  its  notable  manufacturing  facilities  are  known  to 
few  outside  of  the  vicinity  of  Boston.  There  are,  however,  few  cities 
in  the  world  where  building  land  and  building  facilities  are  so  good  ; 
where  water  is  abundant ;  where  coal  can  be  delivered  in  the  original 
bottom  at  the  very  door  of  your  boiler-room ;  where  freight  is  taken 
from  and  brought  into  your  own  yard  ;  where  municipal  control,  insur- 
ance, and  taxes  are  so  fair ;  where  a  superb  fire  department  watches 
over  the  safety  of  the  factory  plant ;  where  intelligent  labor  can  be  so 
readily  obtained  at  a  moment's  notice,  and  at  a  price  which  is  fair  to 
both  employer  and  employee ;  where  the  workmen  can  live  well  and 
comfortably,  enjoying  an  unsurpassed  school-system  and  the  advan- 
tages of  a  beautiful  park  ;  where,  associated  with  the  grand  old  univer- 
sity, there  is  such  an  institution  as  the  Cambridge  Manual  Training 
School,  at  which  any  mechanic  may  see  his  son  trained  free  of  cost 
and  fitted  for  the  true  American  upward  career.  To  Cambridge  her- 
self, as  much  as  to  any  other  one  thing,  is  the  success  of  all  her  manu- 
facturing enterprises  due,  and  all  agree  in  acknowledging  it. 

The  enterprise  which  forms  the  subject  of  this  monograph  is  sound 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  A   GREAT  BUSINESS.  371 

to  the  core,  and  the  city  of  Cambridge  may  well  reckon  the  Boston 
Woven  Hose  and  Rubber  Co.  among  the  best  samples  of  prosperity 
in  its  memorial  year. 

JOHN  P.  SQUIRE  &  CO. 

The  history  of  the  firm  of  John  P.  Squire  &  Co.  Corporation,  one 
of  the  large  manufacturing  interests  in  the  city  of  Cambridge,  is  prac- 
tically the  story  of  the  life  and  struggles  of  its  founder,  Mr.  John  P. 
Squire. 

Mr.  Squire  was  born  in  Weathersfield,  Vt.,  May  8,  1819,  and  was 
the  son  of  Peter  and  Esther  (Craigue)  Squire.  He  spent  his  boy- 
hood days  on  his  father's  farm,  working  during  the  vacations  and 
attending  the  public  schools  in  term  time.  This  early  experience  on  a 
New  England  farm  was  no  hindrance  to  him  in  his  later  experience 
in  business  life.  His  first  introduction  to  business  was  in  his  sixteenth 
year,  when  he  entered  the  store  of  Mr.  Gad  Orvis,  in  the  village  of 
West  Windsor,  Vt.  He  remained  with  Mr.  Orvis  until  the  winter  of 
1837,  and,  although  everything  was  conducted  on  a  very  small  scale, 
he  gained  a  good  deal  of  insight  into  the  methods  of  business  manage- 
ment. 

In  the  winter  of  1837,  feeling  the  need  of  a  better  education,  he 
attended  the  academy  at  Unity,  N.  H.,  of  which  the  late  Rev.  A.  A. 
Miner  was  then  the  principal ;  and  during  a  part  of  the  same  year,  to 
enable  him  to  pay  his  expenses  at  the  academy,  he  taught  school  at 
Cavendish,  Vt.  This  finished  his  school  education.  He  left  the  home 
of  his  boyhood,  and  moved  to  Boston  March  19,  1838.  He  went  to 
work  immediately  for  Nathan  Robbins,  who  was  in  business  in  Quincy 
Market,  now  commonly  called  Faneuil  Hall  Market,  and  continued 
with  him  until  April  30,  1842,  when  he  started  for  himself  and 
formed  a  partnership  with  Francis  Russell,  under  the  style  of  Russell 
&  Squire,  at  No.  25  Faneuil  Hall  Market,  where  the  new  firm  carried 
on  a  provision  business  until  1847,  when  it  was  dissolved. 

Mr.  Squire  continued  the  business  at  the  same  place  alone  until 
1850,  when  the  firm  of  John  P.  Squire  &  Co.  was  formed,  his  partners 
being  Hiland  Lockwood,  who  married  Mr.  Squire's  sister,  and  Edward 
D.  Kimball.  This  firm  name  of  John  P.  Squire  &  Co.  continued 
from  that  time  until  April  30,  1892,  when  the  John  P,  Squire  &  Co. 
Corporation  was  formed.  The  partners  of  Mr.  Squire  changed  several 
times  between  1850  and  the  date  of  the  formation  of  the  corporation, 
and  the  changes  were  as  follows  :  — 

Edward  D.  Kimball  retired  and  W.  W.  Kimball  was  admitted  into 
the  firm  in  the  year  1866 ;  in  1873  George  W.  Squire  and  Frank  0. 
Squire,  sons  of  Mr.  Squire,  became  partners,  and  W.  W.  Kimball 
retired ;  Hiland  Lockwood  died  in  1874,  and  George  W.  Squire  with- 


372  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

drew  in  1876 ;  Fred  F.  Squire,  the  youngest  son,  became  a  partner 
January  1,  1884. 

When  the  corporation  was  formed,  Mr.  John  P.  Squire  became 
president ;  Mr.  Frank  O.  Squire,  vice-jiresident ;  and  Mr.  Fred  F. 
Squire,  treasurer. 

In  1855  Mr.  Squire  bought  a  small  tract  of  land  in  East  Cam- 
bridge, on  Miller's  River,  and  built  a  slaughter-house,  which  was  then 
adequate  for  the  business.  Additions  and  changes  have  been  made 
from  time  to  time,  until  now  the  corporation  has  one  of  the  largest, 
most  modern,  and  best-equipped  packing-houses  in  the  country,  and 
the  business  carried  on  ranks  as  third  in  the  hog-packing  industry  in 
the  United  States. 

A  short  sketch  showing  the  growth  and  facilities  of  the  business  as 
now  carried  on  as  contrasted  with  the  early  days  may  not  be  without 
interest.  At  first  but  one  hog  a  day  was  slaughtered ;  and  when  the 
number  slaughtered  per  day  was  twenty-five  Mr.  Squire  thought,  as  he 
often  remarked  before  his  death,  that  he  was  on  the  high  road  to  suc- 
cess. The  average  number  now  slaughtered  varies  from  2500  to  over 
4000  per  day  for  every  working  day  in  the  year,  with  a  capacity  for 
slaughtering  6000  per  day.  The  total  business  done  by  Mr.  Squire 
the  first  year  amounted  to  about  $16,000.  At  present  the  business 
aggregates  about  $16,000,000.  The  tract  of  land  on  which  the  plant 
is  located  has  grown  from  the  small  piece  first  purchased  in  1855  to 
include  twenty-two  acres,  of  which  nearly  fourteen  are  covered  by 
buildings,  the  main  building  being  six  stories  high  and  having  several 
acres  of  floor  space. 

Originally  the  meats  were  cooled  by  placing  them  in  large  boxes  of 
chopped  ice.  This  crude  method  \yas  superseded  by  using  large  build- 
ings filled  with  ice,  the  lower  portions  of  which  were  thus  made  refri- 
gerators. One  such  was  built  by  Mr.  Squire  about  the  year  1881, 
which  held  37,000  tons  of  ice,  and  had  three  or  four  floors  for  cooling 
purposes  besides  the  basement.  After  the  fire  of  October  5,  1891, 
which  destroyed  the  hog-house  and  burned  out  the  interior  of  this 
large  refrigerator,  Mr.  Squire  adopted  the  De  La  Vergne  system  of 
artificial  refrigeration,  and  built  a  large  building  wherein  were  located 
two  large  machines  with  a  daily  ice-melting  capacity  of  300  tons,  and 
had  this  large  refrigerator  building  equipped  with  the  Jjiping  necessary 
for  carrying  on  the  refrigeration.  By  means  of  this  change  the  area 
for  cooling  purposes  was  largely  increased,  having  now  a  total  of  nine 
acres  under  refrigeration,  and  there  can  be  hung  at  one  time  in  this 
refrigerator  12,000  hogs.  A  large  additional  chimney,  higher  than 
Bunker  Hill  Monument,  had  to  be  built,  and  several  new  boilers  to  run 
the  machinery  had  to  be  put  in ;  the  changes  made  necessary  in  the 
adoption  of  this  improved  system  have  largely  increased  the  equip- 


ELECTRIC  LIGHTING.  373 

ment  and  the  facilities  for  carrying  on  the  pork-packing  business  of 
this  corporation. 

The  live  hogs  are  purchased  in  the  West,  and  are  shipped  by  rail  to 
the  packing-house  in  East  Cambridge,  and  the  freight  paid  for  trans- 
portation amounts  to  a  sum  above  $700,000  per  annum.  There  are 
about  1000  men  employed  at  the  packing-house,  and  it  may  fairly  be 
ranked  as  one  of  the  important  industries  of  the  city  of  Cambridge. 

Mr.  Squire  was  a  man  of  strict  business  integrity,  very  modest  and 
unassuming  in  his  demeanor  ;  a  man  who  was  just  in  his  dealing  with 
all  men.  He  was  a  man  who  to  a  large  business  capacity  and  experi- 
ence added  a  keen  foresight  and  a  power  to  forecast  the  future. 

The  business  has  been  continued  since  his  death,  January  7,  1893, 
by  the  corporation  formed,  as  above  stated,  April  30,  1892. 

Mr.  Squire  married,  March  31, 1843,  Kate  Green  Orvis,  the  daughter 
of  his  first  employer,  Mr.  Gad  Orvis,  and  left  at  his  death  nine  chil- 
dren. His  two  sons,  Frank  O.  and  Fred  F.  Squire,  are  at  the  head 
of  thfe  business.  He  built  up  the  business  he  left  and  held  the  position 
which  he  did  in  commercial  circles  by  reason  of  his  untiring  energy, 
his  undaunted  courage,  his  ability,  and  his  strict  integrity,  and,  by  all 
the  rules  of  the  business  world,  earned  all  that  he  gained. 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  ELECTRIC  LIGHT  CO. 

The  first  meeting  for  the  organization  of  this  company  was  held 
December  1,  1885. 

About  that  time  much  interest  was  felt  in  having  the  city  lighted 
by  electricity.  The  city  had  given  assurances  that  a  franchise  would 
be  granted  in  the  streets  for  the  erection  and  maintenance  of  poles  and 
wires ;  and  in  the  organization  of  the  company  the  commissioner  of 
corporations  of  Massachusetts  allowed  as  part  of  the  capital  of  the 
company  (which  was  $60,000)  the  sum  of  $15,000  as  the  value  of 
such  franchise. 

This  so-called  watering  of  the  stock  remained  as  part  of  the  capital 
stock  until  1895,  when  it  was  charged  off  from  the  earnings  of  the 
company  and  is  no  longer  a  part  of  the  assets,  although  when  mort- 
gage bonds  were  issued  the  franchise  was  included  as  part  of  the  prop- 
erty of  the  company. 

The  original  members  of  the  corporation  were  John  E.  Burgess, 
George  A.  Burgess,  Porter  A.  Underwood,  A.  J.  Applegate,  and 
E.  H.  Mulliken. 

Subscriptions  for  stock  were  opened,  and  L.  M.  Hannum,  A.  P. 
Morse,  Dr.  Charles  Bullock,  S.  S.  Sleeper,  C.  W.  Kingsley,  Gustavus 
Goepper,  and  others  became  stockholders,  there  being  twenty-four  in 
all.  John  E.  Burgess,  George  A.  Burgess,  and  P.  A.  Underwood 
were  elected  directors,  and,  January  27,  1886,  were  made  officers  of 


374  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

the  company  at  a  meeting  of  the  stockholders  then  held :  John  E. 
Burgess,  president ;  George  A.  Burgess,  treasurer  ;  P.  A.  Underwood, 
clerk,  and  E.  H.  MuUiken,  superintendent. 

On  December  30,  1886,  the  board  of  aldermen  authorized  the  com- 
pany to  erect  and  maintain  poles  and  wires  on  Main  Street  from  West 
Boston  Bridge  to  Brattle  Square,  and  soon  after  a  few  arc  lamps  were 
installed.  On  September  1,  1887,  77  public  arcs,  7  commercial  arcs, 
and  847  incandescent  lamps  had  been  installed  in  the  city. 

At  this  time  the  city  lighting  was  very  poor,  owing  to  the  system  in 
use  and  the  imperfect  construction  of  the  lines  and  poles.  In  time 
that  was  obviated  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  system,  and  the  rebuild- 
ing almost  entirely  of  the  pole-lines,  so  as  to  avoid  connection  with 
trees  and  other  obstructions.  At  the  present  time  no  better  lighted 
streets  are  to  be  found  in  the  State ;  and  the  city,  as  well  as  consumers 
generally,  is  seldom  without  a  good  and  continuous  service. 

Messrs.  Josiah  Q.  Bennett  and  F.  H.  Raymond  were  elected  direc- 
tors September  2,  1887,  Mr.  Bennett  becoming  the  president  and  Mr. 
Raymond  treasurer,  which  offices  they  have  held  until  the  present 
time. 

The  plant  was  originally  placed  in  a  wooden  building  belonging  to 
George  L.  Damon,  at  23  Main  Street,  the  foundations  of  which  were 
so  unstable,  and  the  business  of  the  company  increased  so  rapidly,  that 
the  stockholders  determined  upon  a  removal  to  some  more  commodious 
and  convenient  location  nearer  the  centre  of  distribution  for  the  cur- 
rent. The  present  location  on  Western  Avenue  was  selected,  the  land 
purchased,  and  suitable  buildings  erected  ;  and  on  the  11th  of  October, 
1888,  at  twelve  o'clock  noon,  the  current  was  let  on  from  the  new  sta- 
tion, just  exactly  two  years  from  the  date  when  the  current  was  started 
in  the  old  station. 

On  March  5,  1888,  the  stockholders  authorized  the  issue  of  new 
capital  up  to  $100,000,  and  on  December  10, 1888,  a  still  fui*ther  issue 
was  authorized  up  to  $200,000,  which  is  the  present  capital  stock. 

March  15,  1888,  Mr.  MuUiken  resigned  his  position  as  superintend- 
ent, and  Walter  R.  Eaton  was  chosen  to  take  his  place,  which  position 
he  occupied  until  B.  Otis  Danforth  was  elected  in  April,  1891.  Mr. 
Danforth  now  holds  the  office  of  superintendent. 

In  April,  1888,  the  Thompson-Houston  Electric  Company  purchased 
a  controlling  interest  in  the  stock  of  the  company,  and  the  old  systems 
of  electrical  machinery  made  by  the  Weston  and  American  Electric 
Company  were  changed  to  the  Thompson-Houston  system,  which  is 
now  practically  in  use.  A  syndicate  was  formed  in  the  latter  part  of 
1889  to  take  the  stock  held  by  the  Thompson-Houston  Electric  Com- 
pany, and  they  parted  with  their  interest.  Many  citizens  of  Cam- 
bridge not  before  stockholdei's  became  interested  in  the  company. 


COLLARS  AND  CUFFS.  375 

In  1889  the  subject  of  running  the  street-cars  by  electricity  began 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  horse  railroad  company. 

H.  M.  Whitney,  president  of  the  West  End  Street  Railway  Co., 
was  one  of  the  first  to  take  definite  action,  and  this  company  first 
supplied  the  current  to  storage  batteries  upon  the  Cambridge  division 
of  the  West  End  Street  Railway  Co.  The  experiment  was  not  at  all 
satisfactory,  and  as  the  trolley-system  had  now  been  invented  by  Van 
de  Poele,  the  West  End  Street  Railway  Co.  adopted  it,  and  Cam- 
bridge cars  were  first  equipped  with  motors  under  that  system,  and 
from  July,  1889,  uiatil  April,  1892,  all  the  cars  equipped  with  elec- 
tricity were  run  by  power  furnished  the  West  End  by  this  company. 
The  business  of  the  Cambridge  Electric  Light  Co.  having  grown  to 
such  proportions  as  to  require  all  the  available  plant,  and  the  West 
End  Co.  having  about  finished  its  new  power-stations  in  Boston  and 
East  Cambridge,  the  electric  light  company  was  forced  to  discontinue 
delivering  power  to  the  West  End  Co. 

The  business  of  the  company  has  shown  a  constant  increase  since  its 
formation,  and  current  is  now  furnished  to  over  500  arc  lamps  and 
15,000  incandescent  lamps,  besides  about  125  motors  for  mechanical 
purposes,  from  coffee-mills  to  printing-presses. 

The  number  of  men  employed  in  1887  was  only  six,  and  the  total 
income  at  that  time  was  not  over  $1500  per  month,  eighty  per  cent, 
of  which  was  paid  by  the  city. 

The  company  now  employs  from  thirty-five  to  forty  men,  and  the 
monthly  income  is  about  $10,000,  the  city  paying  for  street  lighting 
about  forty  per  cent,  of  that  amount,  showing  the  comparatively  large 
increase  in  commercial  lighting  and  power.  House  consumption  is 
rapidly  on  the  increase,  and  the  most  of  the  new  dwellings  are  equipped 
with  electric  wiring. 

For  the  past  three  years  the  company  has  been  somewhat  restricted 
in  its  growth  by  the  agitation  of  municipal  control,  the  first  step  being 
taken  by  the  city  council  each  year,  but  not  consummated  until  late  in 
1895. 

REVERSIBLE  COLLAR  CO. 

Among  the  diversified  business  interests  of  Cambridge  is  that  of  the 
manufacture  of  the  "  linene  "  collars  and  cuffs.  The  history  of  the 
Reversible  Collar  Co.  is  a  story  of  a  third  of  a  century  of  marked 
business  prosperity.  In  the  early  "  sixties,"  the  manufacture  of  paper 
collars  was  an  important  industry ;  the  goods  enjoying  much  favor 
from  the  general  public. 

In  1862  the  late  Mr,  George  K.  Snow  invented  improvements  in 
machinery  and  processes  for  the  manufacture  of  paper  collars,  and 
a   business   arrangement  was  made  with   Messrs.    March   Brothers, 


376  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Pierce  &,  Co.,  of  Boston,  for  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  the  goods 
made  by  the  improved  methods. 

After  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  a  better  and  more  substantial  class 
of  goods  was  introduced,  and  the  paper  collar  gradually  went  out  of 
use.  Mr.  Snow,  however,  kept  his  inventive  faculty  at  work,  and  his 
inventions  kept  pace  with  the  demand  for  better  goods.  In  1866  The 
Reversible  Collar  Co.  was  incorporated.  Mr.  Snow  became  its  presi- 
dent, and  George  N.  March,  treasurer,  and  the  manufacturing  business 
of  the  company  which  had  heretofore  been  done  in  Boston  was  trans- 
ferred to  Cambridge.  The  building  situated  between  Arrow  and 
Mount  Auburn  streets  was  purchased  and  prepared  for  the  use  of  the 
company.  About  this  time  Mr.  Snow  invented  and  patented  a  machine 
for  uniting  cloth  and  paper  in  continuous  rolls,  which  before  this  had 
always  been  done  by  hand,  and  in  sheets,  and  the  larger  portion  used 
was  imported  from  England. 

Mr.  Snow's  invention  enabled  the  company  to  produce  the  most 
perfect  fabric  for  machine-made  collars  that  had  been  discovered,  and 
the  same  method  is  now  used  in  the  manufacture  of  the  fabric  from 
which  "  linene  "  goods  are  made. 

In  1883  George  N.  March  retired  from  the  office  of  treasurer,  and 
Eben  Denton  was  chosen  treasurer  and  general  manager.  Mr.  Denton, 
finding  that  the  collar  business  of  the  company  used  but  a  part  of  the 
plant,  introduced  a  separate  branch  of  business,  that  of  manufacturing 
colored,  glazed,  and  enameled  papers  ;  these  met  great  success,  and 
the  demand  for  them  rapidly  increased. 

Mr.  Snow  died  in  the  summer  of  1885,  and  Phineas  Pierce  was 
then  chosen  president,  and  Robert  Butterworth  superintendent  of  the 
works.  The  business  of  the  company  rapidly  increased,  and  additions 
to  the  buildings  were  made  at  different  times,  until  all  the  land  of  the 
original  plant  was  covered. 

In  1893  the  company  again  found  itself  cramped  for  room,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  seek  a  new  location.  A  large  lot  of  land  extending 
from  Putnam  Avenue  to  Banks  Street  was  purchased,  and  in  1895 
one  of  the  handsomest  manufacturing  buildings  in  Cambridge  was 
erected.  The  main  building  is  222  feet  long,  76  feet  wide,  and  is 
three  stories  high  above  the  basement ;  the  engine  and  boiler  house  is 
fifty-seven  by  sixty  feet,  and  two  stories  high,  and  the  smokestack  rises 
127  feet  above  the  ground. 

The  company  employs  about  125  persons,  chiefly  men.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  manufacture  of  the  "  linene  "  collars  and  cuffs,  the  output 
of  which  in  1895  was  11,573,000,  about  1440  tons  of  coated,  enam- 
eled, and  glazed  paper  were  finished  and  sold. 


NETS  FOR  FISHERMEN.  377 

AMERICAN  NET  AND  TWINE  CO. 

The  American  Net  and  Twine  Co.  is  located  on  land  extending  from 
Second  to  Third  Street  in  East  Cambridge,  where  are  manufactured 
all  kinds  of  cotton  and  linen  nettings  used  in  the  different  fisheries 
of  the  American  continent. 

This  company  commenced  business  in  a  very  small  way  in  the  year 
1842,  and  was  located  in  the  same  building  where  their  office  now  is, 
34  Commercial  Street,  Boston. 

At  the  time  this  business  was  established  the  fish-netting  of  this 
country  was  all  made  by  hand,  and  was  made  almost  entirely  of  hemp 
twines  imported  from  England.  , 

In  the  year  1844  James  S.  Shepard,  of  Canton,  became  connected 
with  the  company,  and  commenced  the  manufacture  of  the  first  cotton 
twine  used  for  netting  in  this  country,  which  eventually  completely  dis- 
placed the  hemp  twines  in  the  American  fisheries. 

From  this  small  beginning  this  company  has  steadily  increased  in 
size  and  capacity  to  its  present  standing,  which  finds  it  the  largest  pro- 
ducer  of  fish-nettings,  twines,  and  lines  in  the  world. 

In  the  course  of  events,  as  their  business  increased  and  machinery 
was  invented  for  the  manufacture  of  netting,  these  machines  were 
added  to  their  plant,  and  constant  additions  were  made  until,  in  the  year 
1875,  their  old  quarters  being  entirely  inadequate  to  the  handling  of 
their  business,  they  located  in  East  Cambridge  in  the  factory  which 
they  at  present  occupy. 

This  factory  was  built  expressly  for  the  manufacture  of  netting,  and 
is  a  model  of  convenience  for  the  work  for  which  it  is  intended. 

The  "  Gold  Medal  "  brand  of  cotton  twine  and  netting,  which  is  well 
known  throughout  all  the  fisheries  of  this  continent,  is  manufactured 
by  this  company  in  their  own  mill.  At  their  cotton-mill  at  Canton 
they  manufacture  from  the  raw  material  the  cotton  twines  which  are 
sent  to  the  Cambridge  factory,  and  there  put  into  the  great  variety  of 
sizes  and  shapes  required  in  the  different  kinds  of  nets,  seines,  and 
pounds  used  in  the  commercial  fisheries  of  the  continent. 

They  also  make  a  specialty  of  the  linen  gill  netting  business,  and  are 
proprietors  of  the  "  A.  N.  &  T."  "  Coy "  brand  of  linen  gilling, 
which  probably  is  more  used  in  the  gill  net  fisheries  than  all  other 
brands  combined. 

Their  manufactures  have  received  the  highest  award  in  every  instance 
where  exhibited  in  competition  with  others.  At  the  "  Centennial " 
Exposition  in  Philadelphia,  the  "  World's  Fisheries  Exhibition "  in 
London,  England,  in  1883,  and  the  "  World's  Fair "  in  Chicago  in 
1893,  they  came  in  competition  with  manufactures  of  the  world,  and 
secured  the  highest  award  in  every  line  of  work,  receiving  the  only 
gold  medal  awarded  in  London,  England,  in  1883. 


378  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

At  the  factory  at  East  Cambridge  are  employed  some  three  hundred 
hands,  where,  with  the  patented  machineiy  invented  and  developed  by 
their  own  means,  this  company  is  enabled  to  produce  at  the  lowest  pos- 
sible cost  the  great  variety  of  goods  employed  in  the  fisheries. 

The  location  of  their  factory  at  East  Cambridge  brings  them  in 
quick  and  easy  communication  with  railroad  and  steamboat  lines  of 
Boston,  enabling  them  to  execute  and  deliver  orders  promptly  to  all 
parts  of  the  North  American  continent. 

The  home  office  of  the  company  is  in  Boston,  34  Commercial  Street, 
and  their  only  branch  office  is  located  at  199  Fulton  Street,  New  York. 

NEW  YORK  BISCUIT  CO. 

This  establishment,  so  well  known  all  over  the  United  States,  was 
originally  started  by  the  late  Artemas  Kennedy  in  1839,  when  he 
came  to  Cambridgeport  and  began  business  in  a  brick  building  on 
Main  Street  near  Brookline,  where  he  remained  for  about  six  years. 
He  then  built  a  frame  house  with  bakery  adjoining,  on  the  site  now 
occupied  by  the  apartment  house,  the  Lowell,  Nos.  434  to  440  Mas- 
sachusetts Avenue.  He  continued  to  bake  crackers  in  this  bakery  for 
a  period  of  about  ten  years,  the  actual  consumption  of  flour  being 
about  four  barrels  per  day,  which  was  kneaded,  rolled,  formed  by 
hand,  and  the  crackers  were  pitched  into  the  oven  one  by  one.  He 
established  routes  within  a  radius  of  forty  miles  for  selling  and  dis- 
posing of  the  product  of  his  factory.  Subsequently  he  shipped  many 
goods  to  California  during  the  gold  fever,  and  also  to  Australia  and 
England.  Even  so  far  back  as  1855  steam  was  introduced  into  his 
factory,  and  the  product  was  increased  so  that  nine  barrels  of  flour  were 
turned  out  daily.  He  continued  to  increase  his  trade  up  to  1861,  in 
which  year  he  died,  and  Frank  A.  Kennedy,  his  only  son,  succeeded  to 
the  business.  From  that  time  the  business  increased  very  rapidly 
indeed,  and  agencies  were  established  in  New  York  city,  Philadelphia, 
and  Chicago.  It  was  found  necessary  to  run  his  factory  night  and 
day.  In  1869  the  first  reel  or  mechanical  ovens  were  built,  which 
increased  the  capacity  to  about  twenty  barrels  of  flour  per  oven. 
From  time  to  time  more  reel  ovens  were  added  to  the  plant,  and  in 
1875  a  large  brick  building  was  erected  on  Green  Street,  the  present 
site  of  the  New  York  Biscuit  Co.  factory.  Subsequently  additional 
ovens  were  found  necessary,  and  the  business  had  a  very  rapid  growth. 

In  1882  the  F.  A.  Kennedy  Co.  was  incorporated  under  the  laws 
of  Massachusetts,  to  succeed  F.  A.  Kennedy,  which  corporation  con- 
tinued to  exist  until  the  business  was  sold  out  to  the  New  York  Bis- 
cuit Co.  on  May  10,  1890. 

The  New  York  Biscuit  Co.  is  a  corporation  established  under  the 
laws  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  was  organized  in  1889.     It  at  first 


A   BROKEN  DINNER-BELL.  379 

simply  included  five  or  six  bakeries  in  New  York  city,  but  during 
1890  plants  were  purchased  in  different  sections  of  the  country,  and 
the  F.  A.  Kennedy  Co.,  as  stated  above,  was  bought  by  them  on  May 
10, 1890.  The  New  York  Biscuit  Co.  has  factories  and  branches  in 
all  the  leading  cities  of  the  United  States.  It  controls  the  leading 
brands  of  crackers  and  biscuit  known  in  this  country,  including  the 
celebrated  Kennedy,  Holmes  &  Coutts,  Larrabee,  Bent  &  Co.,  Pear- 
son Pilot  Bread,  and  in  fact  aU  of  the  leading  standard  brands  of 
crackers  and  biscuit  principally  known  east  of  the  Mississippi  River. 
It  has  a  capital  stock  of  nine  million  dollars.  The  principal  office  is 
in  Chicago,  111. 

The  Cambridgeport  factory  is  the  second  largest  plant  of  the  New 
York  Biscuit  Co.,  and  has  the  capacity  of  consuming  from  three  hun- 
dred to  four  hundred  barrels  of  flour  per  day.  To  take  care  of  its 
output  one  hundred  wagons  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  horses  are 
used.  Six  hundred  and  fifty  residents  of  the  city  of  Cambridge  are 
constantly  employed  in  this  factory. 

ALVAN  CLARK  &  SONS. 

In  an  article  written  by  Professor  Simon  Newcomb,  and  published 
in  "  Scribner's  Magazine  "  in  1873,  he  says :  "  When  we  trace  back 
the  chain  of  causes  which  led  to  the  construction  of  the  great  Washing- 
ton telescope,  we  find  it  to  commence  with  so  small  a  matter  as  the 
accidental  breaking  of  a  dinner-bell,  in  the  year  1843,  at  the  Phillips 
Academy,  Andover,  Mass." 

One  of  the  students,  George  B.  Clark  by  name,  gathered  up  the 
fragments  of  the  bell,  took  them  to  his  home  in  Cambridgeport,  melted 
them,  and  cast  them  into  a  disk.  His  father,  Alvan  Clark,  assisted 
him,  and  the  combined  skill  of  father  and  son  produced  a  five-inch 
reflecting  telescope.  Alvan  Clark,  the  father,  was  born  in  Ashfield, 
Mass.,  in  1804,  and  was  at  this  time  a  portrait  painter  ;  he  had  decided 
mechanical  tastes,  and  at  one  time  had  worked  as  a  fine-line  engraver. 

Taking  up  his  new  work  with  ardor,  he  spent  several  years  making 
glasses  of  gradually  increasing  size.  The  first  recognition  of  his 
genius  came  from  England.  The  Rev.  W.  R.  Dawes,  a  leading  ama- 
teur astronomer,  gave  him  an  order  for  a  glass,  which  was  immediately 
followed  by  an  order  for  a  second  one. 

Mr.  Clark  commenced  the  construction  of  a  telescope  for  the  Uni- 
versity of  Mississippi,  but  on  account  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War, 
it  was  not  delivered.  It  was  afterwards  sold  to  the  Chicago  Astro- 
nomical Society.  He  was  awarded  the  Rumford  medal  for  his 
approved  method  in  locating  errors  and  eliminating  them  by  the 
method  of  local  correction.  His  first  work  in  telescope  making  was 
done  in  his  home  on  Prospect  Street,  opposite  the  Tilton  House.    The 


380  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

firm  moved  to  the  present  location  at  about  1860.  Alvan  Clark  died 
in  August,  1887,  and  George  B.  Clark  in  December,  1891.  The  busi- 
ness is  now  carried  on  by  the  remaining  son,  Alvan  G.  Clark. 

In  1862  Alvan  G.  Clark,  by  the  aid  of  a  newly  constructed  glass, 
discovered  the  companion  to  Sirius,  and  for  this  discovery  he  was 
awarded  the  Lelande  medal  of  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences. 

Among  the  great  telescopes  made  by  this  firm  may  be  named  the 
26-inch  Washington  Refractor,  the  30-inch  Pulkowa  Refractor,  the 
36-inch  Lick  Refractor,  and  the  recently  completed  40-inch  Yerkes 
Refractor. 

The  workshops  are  contained  in  a  brick  building,  located  near  the 
residence  of  Mr.  Clark,  on  the  shore  of  Charles  River,  at  the  foot  of 
Brookline  Street.  They  are  thoroughly  equipped  with  all  necessary 
machinery  and  tools.  The  firm  of  Alvan  Clark  &  Sons  stands  at  the 
head  of  telescope-makers.     Their  reputation  is  world-wide. 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  GAS  LIGHT  CO. 

A  charter  from  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  1852  granted  Charles 
C.  Little,  Isaac  Livermore,  and  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard,  their  associates 
and  successors,  the  right  of  making  and  selling  gas,  and  allowed  them 
a  capital  of  three  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

The  company  was  organized  on  the  22d  day  of  June,  1852,  by  the 
election  of  John  H.  Blake,  Isaac  Livermore,  Charles  C.  Little,  Estes 
Howe,  and  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard  as  directors ;  the  last  named  was 
chosen  president,  and  Estes  Howe  was  the  clerk  and  treasurer  from 
the  beginning  until  his  death  in  1887. 

Blake  &  Darracott  were  the  contractors  who  erected  the  first 
works ;  these  works  were  located  south  of  Mount  Auburn  Street,  at  the 
foot  of  Bath  (then  Bath  Lane)  and  Ash  streets,  now  appropriated  for 
the  Charles  River  Park.  Pipes  were  laid  in  portions  of  Cambridge, 
and  in  1856  they  were  extended  into  that  part  of  Somerville  lying 
southwesterly  of  the  Boston  &  Lowell  Railroad. 

In  1871,  the  output  of  gas  having  reached  fifty-seven  million  cubic 
feet  per  annum,  steps  were  taken  to  build  larger  works,  and  a  transfer 
was  made  to  the  present  location  on  Third  Street  (then  Court  Street) 
in  East  Cambridge.  The  capacity  was  one  million  feet  per  day,  but 
there  is  ample  room  for  all  future  extensions.  In  1872,  by  authority 
of  the  State,  the  capital  of  the  company  was  fixed  at  one  million 
dollars,  of  which  at  the  present  time  seven  hundred  thousand  are  paid 
in.  In  1873  gas  was  made  for  a  time  in  both  localities,  but  in  1874 
the  old  works  were  permanently  given  up. 

In  1876  the  advent  of  kerosene  materially  interfered  with  the  use 
of  gas,  and  the  consumption,  which  in  1875  had  been  eighty-four  mil- 
lion feet,  fell  to  fifty-seven  million  feet  in  1879. 


A  RUBBER   COMPANY.  38t 

From  1879  the  increase  in  consumption  was  gradual ;  but  in  1886, 
when  the  lighting  of  the  streets  was  largely  changed  from  gas  to  elec- 
tricity, a  new  impetus  became  apparent  in  indoor  illumination,  and  the 
sales  of  gas,  which  in  that  year  were  ninety-seven  million  feet,  rose 
rapidly  to  one  hundred  and  seventy  million  feet  in  1895  ;  the  use  of 
gas  in  cooking  and  heating  has  its  share  in  this  increase,  and  all  shows 
a  greater  affluence  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  city. 

The  present  board  of  directors  is  composed  of  seven  members  :  Wil- 
lard  A.  Bullai'd,  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  Henry  Endicott,  Stanley  B. 
Hildreth,  Henry  C.  Rand,  Daniel  G.  Tyler,  and  Quincy  A.  Vinal. 

Daniel  U.  Chamberlin  is  the  president :  Adolph  Vogl,  clerk  and 
treasurer ;  and  Horace  A.  Allyn,  superintendent. 

AMERICAN  RUBBER  CO. 

The  American  Rubber  Co.  was  organized  in  1872  under  the  laws 
of  Massachusetts.  A  jobbing  business  was  done  until  1877,  when 
the  factory  was  built  in  Cambridge  for  the  pui-pose  of  manufacturing 
boots,  shoes,  clothing,  and  wringer  rolls.  The  plant  was  entirely  de- 
stroyed by  fire  in  December,  1881,  but  was  at  once  rebuilt  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  the  capital  increased  from  two  hundred  thousand  to 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars  and  later  to  one  million  dollars. 

In  1877  the  amount  of  floor  space  in  use  was  two  acres,  the  number 
of  employees  one  hundred,  the  pay-roll  sixty  thousand  dollars,  and  the 
product  valued  at  three  hundred  thousand  doUai'S.  At  the  present 
time  the  floor  space  covers  seven  and  one  fourth  acres,  the  number  of 
employees  is  fifteen  hundred,  the  pay-roll  nearly  six  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  dollars,  and  the  value  of  the  product  three  and  one  half 
million  dollars  per  annum. 

Mr.  R.  D.  Evans  was  the  originator  of  the  company,  and  he  has 
remained  at  its  head  to  the  present  time.  Mr.  AUen  L.  Comstock 
is  superintendent. 

The  capacity  of  the  plant  at  the  present  time  is  twenty-five  thousand 
pairs  of  boots  and  shoes  and  two  thousand  rubber  coats  and  mackin- 
toshes per  day.  This  company  was  among  the  first  to  make  mack- 
intosh coats  in  the  United  States,  beginning  as  an  experiment  and 
increasing  their  product  slowly,  until  they  now  make  nearly  one  thou- 
sand per  day.  The  company  have  branch  houses  in  New  York, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and  St.  Paul,  the  product  is  sold  over  the  country 
from  Maine  to  California,  and  a  large  export  trade  is  being  developed. 
One  million  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  crude  rubber  and  cotton 
and  woolen  cloths  and  other  materials  to  the  value  of  one  million  dol- 
lars are  used  annually. 

The  company  state  that  among  the  advantages  found  from  being 
located  in  Cambridge  are  excellent  freight  facilities,  nearness  to  the 


0 

2 

8 

0 

2 

7 

0 

2 

0 

0 

2 

0 

0 

3 

0 

0 

17 

4 

382  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Boston  market,  and  the  ease  with  which  they  can  find  workmen  when 
needed. 

A.  H.  HEWS  &  CO. 
own  the  oldest  existing  pottery  in  the  United  States,  located  in  North 
Cambridge.  The  business  was  founded  at  Weston,  in  1765,  by  the 
grandfather  of  the  present  senior  member  of  the  firm  of  A.  H.  Hews 
&  Co.  On  the  fly-leaf  of  the  journal  of  the  founder  of  the  business  is 
written  "  Abraham  Hews's  book,  Weston."  The  first  entry  was  made 
on  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Lexington :  — 

April  19, 1775. 

Lemuel  Jones,  to  ware,  Dr.  ..... 

Isaac  Flagg,  to  ware,  Dr.  ..... 

April  29,  1775. 

Isaac  Jones,  to  ware,  Dr.  ...... 

Nathan  Darkhurs,  to  ware,  Dr.  .  ... 

June  19,  1793. 

David  Brackett,  to  my  horse  to  Framingham,  12  miles.  Dr. 

Thos.  Rand  to  8  thous*  shingle  nales,  Dr. 
October  28,  1794. 

the  Widow  Ward,  to  Earthem  ware.  Dr.    .... 
May,  1797. 

Esq'  A.  Ward,  to  1^  Days  work  Charles  and  oxen  Braking  up.  Dr.  0  12  0 
Mch  4,  1800. 

Dr.  Amos  Brancroft,  to  ware.  Dr.        .  .  .  .  .016 

the  Widow  Lucy  Sanderson,  to  Hogg,  Dr.  .  .  .  2     17    8 

For  more  than  one  hundred  years  the  business  remained  in  the  same 
location,  and  passed  through  the  hands  of  four  generations.  In  1870 
it  was  removed  to  Cambridge.  The  early  records  of  the  concern  show 
that  the  principal  articles  of  manufacture  were  beanpots,  bread  and 
milk  pans,  and  teapots,  and  that  the  trade  was  mostly  barter,  exchange 
for  groceries.  New  England  rum,  etc. 

Until  the  year  1864  or  1865,  common  flower-pots,  the  world  over, 
were  made  by  hand  on  the  potter's  wheel,  which  was  propelled  by  hand 
or  foot.  In  1869  the  concern  manufactured  seven  hundred  thousand 
flower-pots ;  in  1894  seven  million.  In  addition  to  this  enormous 
number  of  flower-pots  they  turned  out  large  quantities  of  jardinieres, 
cuspidors,  and  umbrella  stands. 

During  the  busy  season  they  employ  one  hundred  and  fifty  hands, 
with  a  weekly  pay-roll  of  one  thousand  dollars.  The  capital  employed 
is  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  thousand  dollars. 

ALDEN  SPEARE'S  SONS  &  CO., 
manufacturers,  importers,  and  exporters  of  oils,  emery,  starches,  and 
mill    and    laundry   supplies  ;     general    headquarters,    369    Atlantic 
Avenue,  Boston  ;  works  at  East  Cambridge,  Mass.,  Walpole,  Mass., 


Amkrican  Kubbkk  Compaxy, 


The  Keversible  Colear  Compaxy. 


EXPORTERS  AND  BOOK-BINDERS.  383 

and  Fall  River,  Mass.,  —  was  established  in  1851.  The  help  employed 
numbers  between  four  and  five  hundred  people. 

The  works  at  East  Cambridge  are  the  largest.  Here  every  modern 
facility  is  employed  to  carry  on  their  extensive  oil  trade.  The  works 
are  reached  from  the  Boston  &  Albany  Railroad  by  a  private  spur  track, 
known  as  the  Rogers  Street  Siding.  By  the  use  of  large  pumps,  tank- 
cars  containing  seven  thousand  gallons  of  oil  can  be  emptied  of  their 
contents  in  half  an  hour,  and  seven  cars  can  be  pumped  at  one  time. 
Similar  facilities  for  the  reception  of  imported  oils  are  employed.  A 
private  wharf  is  located  at  Third  Street,  large  enough  for  the  biggest 
vessel.  The  oils  are  pumped  into  large  tanks,  of  which  there  ai-e 
twenty,  with  a  capacity  of  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  gal- 
lons, the  oil  first  passing  through  immense  oil  presses,  rendering  it  free 
from  all  foreign  substances.  Many  of  the  neighboring  factories  are 
supplied  with  oil  through  lines  of  connecting  pipe. 

To  carry  on  this  business,  over  an  acre  of  floor  space,  as  well  as 
acres  of  open  yards,  is  required.  Thirty  teams  and  many  tank  wagons 
assist.  Two  one  hundred  horse-power  boilers  and  seventy-five  horse- 
power high-speed  auxiliary  engines,  with  electrical  apparatus,  furnish 
power  and  light.  Private  telephone  lines  connect  the  works  with  a 
"  central "  in  the  main  office  in  Boston,  whereby  the  different  depart- 
ments can  communicate  with  each  other,  or  with  the  general  public,  if 
desired. 

The  firm  is  now  composed  of  Lewis  R.  Speare,  Henry  I.  Hall,  E. 
Ray  Speare,  and  Alden  Speare,  special,  ex-president  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  and  present  president  of  the  Boston  Board  of  Trade. 

They  have  offices  and  agencies  in  nearly  aU  the  large  cities  in 
America,  with  a  foreign  representative. 

A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE    RIVERSIDE  BINDERY,   BLACKSTONE 

STREET. 

The  name  of  "  The  Riverside  Bindeiy  "  was  first  given  to  this  estab- 
lishment by  Mr.  James  Brown,  the  father  of  Mr.  John  Murray  Brown, 
who  is  the  only  surviving  member  of  the  original  firm  of  Messrs.  Lit- 
tle, Brown  &  Co..  the  well-known  law-book  publishers  of  No.  254 
Washington  Street,  Boston.  This  business  had  its  conception  in  the 
year  1852,  in  a  small  wooden  structure  situated  on  Remington  Street, 
Cambridge,  then  owned  by  Mr.  Little,  the  business  being  conducted  by 
A.  F.  Lemon  and  Charles  P.  Clark,  Esq.  From  Remington  Street  the 
business  was  removed  to  Blackstone  Street,  and  was  carried  on  in  con- 
junction with  a  law-book  business  then  being  conducted  under  the 
management  of  Benjamin  F.  Nourse  and  John  Remick,  in  the  "  old 
Almshouse,"  which  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Little  from  the  city  of  Cam- 
bridge.    It  stood  on  a  part  of  the  estate  where  now  is  the  world-re- 


384  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

nowned  establishment  called  The  Riverside  Press,  owned  and  operated 
by  Messrs.  Houghton,  MiflBiin  &  Co.  Messrs.  Nourse  &  Remick  were 
succeeded  by  Messrs.  Lemon,  Remick  &  Fields  (the  latter  a  brother 
of  the  Mr.  James  T.  Fields  of  the  famous  publishing-house  of  Fields, 
Osgood  &  Co.,  Boston).  These  were  in  turn  succeeded  by  A.  F.  Lemon 
and  Messrs.  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  as  equal  partners.  Mr.  Lemon's 
interests  were  eventually  purchased  by  its  present  proprietors,.  Messrs. 
Little,  Brown  «&;  Co. 

The  Riverside  Bindery  was  finally  removed  across  the  street  to  its 
present  location.  It  is  noted  far  and  near  for  the  excellency  of  its  fine 
leather  bindings. 

The  writer  of  this  article  is  indebted  to  Mr.  John  Bartlett,  formerly  a 
copartner  of  Messrs.  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  and  the  author  of  "  Bartlett's 
Familiar  Quotations,"  and  also  to  Mr.  A.  F.  Lemon  and  Mr.  C.  F. 
Wilson,  the  present  manager  of  the  establishment. 

THE  GEORGE  G.  PAGE  BOX  CO. 
The  George  G.  Page  Box  Co.  has  grown  with  our  city's  progress 
until  it  is  now  the  largest  concern  of  the  kind  in  the  New  England 
States.  Mr.  George  G.  Page,  whose  name  the  company  bears,  and 
who  was  its  founder,  was  born  in  Dorchester,  N.  H,,  in  1807.  In 
1844  Mr,  Page  commenced  the  manufacture  of  boxes  and  packing- 
cases  in  Cambridgeport,  his  shop  being  on  what  is  now  Magazine 
Street,  where  all  the  work  was  done  by  hand.  In  1845  he  built  a  small 
factory  and  dwelling-house  at  the  junction  of  Hampshire  Street  and 
Broadway,  the  site  now  occupied  by  the  present  corporation.  In  1857 
the  factory  and  dwelling-house  were  both  totally  destroyed  by  fire.  Mr. 
Page  rebuilt  his  factory  upon  a  larger  scale.  Into  his  new  building  he 
put  an  engine  of  thirty  horse-power  and  other  new  machinery.  After  a 
short  time  it  was  found  that  the  business  was  increasing,  and  that 
more  room  and  better  facilities  were  required,  and  extensive  additions 
were  made.  The  manufacture  of  cigar-boxes  became  a  prominent 
feature  in  the  industry,  and  nearly  one  hundred  people  were  given 
employment  where  only  a  few  years  before  two  or  three  were  all  that 
were  required.  Wood-working  machinery  had  not  at  that  time  reached 
that  high  degree  of  perfection  it  has  now,  consequently  more  skilled 
labor  was  needed  to  do  the  same  amount  of  work  than  is  necessary  in 
these  days.  Another  disaster  by  fire  came  upon  the  industry  in  1873. 
One  evening  a  blaze  started  in  the  cellar  of  the  factory,  and  in  a  short 
time  both  building  and  machinery  wei'e  totally  destroyed,  together 
with  two  sheds  full  of  lumber,  a  cargo  of  lumber  that  had  only  been 
landed  a  few  days  before,  and  their  large  lumber  wharf,  and  a  dry- 
house  full  of  hard-pine  boards.  Notwithstanding  this  sudden  and 
heavy  loss,  but  a  short  time  was  required  to  place  the  concern  again 


A  BOX  FACTORY.  385 

in  working  order.  The  old  furniture  manufactory  of  Batchelder, 
Moore  &  Co.,  of  East  Cambridge,  was  secured,  and  new  machinery 
put  in,  and  a  room  was  hired  in  Leander  Greely's  building,  where 
the  cigar  branch  was  carried  on.  Early  in  the  spring  of  1874  the 
present  brick  building,  one  hundred  and  thirty  by  fifty  feet,  three  sto- 
ries high,  was  commenced,  and  in  July  of  the  same  year  it  was  ready 
for  occupancy.  At  this  time  Mr.  Wesley  L.  Page  became  a  junior 
partner,  and  the  fu-m  name  was  George  G.  Page  &  Co.  In  1880  fail- 
ing health  compelled  Mr.  George  G.  Page  to  relinquish  all  active  part 
in  the  business,  and  he  retired,  leaving  its  entire  management  to  his 
two  sons.  In  December,  1882,  Mr.  Ovando  G.  Page  died,  and  the 
following  March  the  present  corporation  was  formed,  under  the  style 
of  the  George  G.  Page  Box  Co. 

Its  present  officers  are  :  "Wesley  L.  Page,  president ;  Clarence  M. 
Howlett,  treasurer  ;  Dana  R.  Johnson,  clerk  ;  who  constitute  the  board 
of  directors. 

On  the  13th  day  of  January,  1886,  Mr.  George  G.  Page  died,  but 
he  lived  to  see  the  works  which  he  founded  on  so  small  a  scale  become 
one  of  the  largest  of  their  line  in  New  England.  The  present  plant 
consists  of  a  brick  building  known  as  Factory  No.  1,  one  hundred  and 
thirty  by  fifty  feet,  three  stories  high,  and  a  wooden  building  known 
as  Factory  No.  2,  one  hundred  by  fifty  feet,  of  three  stories.  In  the 
rear  of  Factory  No.  1  is  a  storehouse,  sixty  feet  square  and  two  stories 
in  height.  Outside  of  the  main  building  is  a  brick  boiler  and  engine 
room,  built  in  1885.  The  buildings  are  thoroughly  protected  against 
accident  by  fire  by  steam-pipes,  which  run  to  every  part  of  the  build- 
ings, and  in  case  of  fire  the  opening  of  a  valve  in  the  engine-room  will 
at  once  fill  any  or  every  room  with  raw  steam.  Automatic  sprinklers 
are  also  run  through  every  story.  The  various  buildings  and  yards 
are  lighted  by  incandescent  lamps,  the  supply  for  which  is  taken  from 
a  plant  of  their  own.  On  the  first  or  ground  floor  of  Factory  No.  1 
are  located  the  planers.  Here  the  lumber  is  received  just  as  it  comes 
by  vessel  or  car  from  the  mills  in  the  Maine  forests.  Formerly  a  load 
of  boards  required  two  or  three  handlings  during  its  transportation 
from  the  car  or  vessel  to  the  machinery,  but  now  the  truck  or  team 
upon  which  it  is  loaded  backs  up  to  the  wide  doorway,  where  it  is  slid 
on  rollers  directly  to  the  machine.  There  are  several  of  these  planing- 
machines  in  constant  operation,  finishing  thirty  thousand  feet  per  day. 
These  machines  plane  two  boards  at  once  on  both  sides.  After  leaving 
the  planing-machine  the  lumber  goes  to  the  cutting-off  saws,  where  it 
is  cut  into  the  proper  lengths  for  boxes.  Other  saws  cut  it  into  proper 
widths  for  sides,  tops,  bottoms,  ends,  or  whatever  it  is  intended  to  be 
used  for.  The  pieces  are  fitted  by  means  of  a  matching-machine,  and 
then  they  are  in  shape  to  be  put  together  into  boxes  of  any  size  or 
shape  desired,  from  the  smallest  up  to  a  piano  case. 


386  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

On  the  second  floor  is  located  the  room  where  all  the  tools,  saws,  and 
cutters  are  kept  in  condition  by  an  experienced  man  employed  only 
for  that  purpose,  the  remainder  of  the  floor  being  used  by  band-saws, 
locking-machines,  combination  cut-off  saws,  and  other  machinery  used 
in  the  general  manufacture. 

On  the  third  floor  are  the  machines  where  the  small  lock-comer 
boxes  are  made.  From  Factory  No.  1  all  the  work  goes  to  be  fin- 
ished to  Factory  No.  2,  which  is  in  the  rear  but  connected  by  a  covered 
bridge.  On  the  first  floor  of  Factory  No.  2  is  situated  the  printing 
department,  which  has  grown  to  be  a  very  important  branch  of  the 
box-making  business,  by  which  means  pasting  on  of  labels  has  been  done 
away  with.  Several  presses  are  kept  here  in  constant  operation,  print- 
ing the  ends  and  sides  for  the  boxes  in  one  or  more  colors.  On  the 
second  floor  is  situated  the  superintendent's  and  shipping-clerk's  ofl&ce. 
Here,  also,  are  located  the  various  machines  for  finishing  large  lock- 
corner  boxes,  and  several  men  are  employed  making  up  boxes  that  are 
too  large  to  be  nailed  by  machines. 

On  the  third  floor  of  Factory  No.  2  is  found  more  of  the  lock- 
corner  machinery,  nailing-machines,  etc.,  used  in  finishing  all  kinds  of 
boxes.  Here  are  in  use  five  nailing-machines,  which,  with  those  in 
other  departments,  make  twelve  in  all,  and  will  drive  nails  from  three- 
fourths  inch  up  to  three  inches  in  length.  In  the  several  departments, 
five  hundred  thousand  feet  or  more  of  lumber  cut  to  size  is  constantly 
kept  in  stock  ready  to  be  put  together. 

There  is  very  little  waste  in  an  establishment  of  this  kind.  Sawdust 
and  chips  are  sold,  and  the  shavings  are  used  for  fuel.  No  coal  is  used 
in  running  the  engine.  The  shavings  are  blown  into  the  boiler-room 
to  be  used  for  fuel,  and  the  surplus  shavings  are  blown  into  the  second 
story  of  the  shaving  building,  from  whence  they  are  dropped  through 
a  spout  into  wagons  and  carted  away.  The  chips  are  sold  for  kind- 
ling. The  entire  product  of  five  mills  located  in  Maine  and  Massa- 
chusetts is  taken  by  this  company,  and,  in  addition  thereto,  part  of  the 
product  of  several  others  is  required  to  supply  their  needs.  Eight  to 
nine  million  feet  are  used  annually,  and  three  or  four  million  carried 
in  stock.  From  four  to  five  hundred  cars  a  year  are  now  imloaded 
in  the  yard  of  the  Page  Box  Co. 

PARRT  BROTHERS. 
Cambridge  has  achieved  an  enviable  reputation  for  many  thriving 
industries,  and  among  the  number  that  of  manufacturing  the  best  brick 
deserves  a  word  of  special  mention.  The  business  is  all  concentrated 
in  one  section,  a  part  of  "Ward  5,  North  Cambridge.  The  various  pits 
are  located  at  the  upper  portion  of  the  section  named  above,  and  the 
most  extensive  manufacturers  are  Parry  Brothers,  whose  success  and 
fame  in  this  line  are  due  to  unceasing  energy,  push,  and  enterprise. 


THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  BRICK.  387 

The  firm  originated  in  1874,  when  the  late  C  E.  Parry,  father  of 
the  Parry  brothers,  commenced  the  industry  at  the  old  New  England 
Brick  Co.'s  plant  at  the  foot  of  Raymond  Street.  Mr.  Parry  died  in 
1878,  and  liis  sons,  Messrs.  John  and  William,  continued  the  business 
under  the  firm  name  of  Parry  Brothers.  In  1880  Mr.  A.  R.  Smith 
was  admitted  into  the  partnership.  He  remained  with  the  firm  till 
1883,  when  he  sold  out  his  interest  to  the  other  partners,  and  in  the 
spring  of  1884  an  entirely  new  firm  was  organized,  consisting  of  Parry 
brothers  alone  —  that  is,  of  John  E.,  WiUiam  A.,  George  A.,  and 
Richard  H.  Parry.  That  same  winter  the  firm  purchased  the  property 
and  business  of  the  Cambridge  Brick  Co.,  and  transferred  the  same  to 
the  extensive  new  yards  which  they  had  built  on  Concord  Avenue. 

It  was  at  this  date  that  the  firm  began  to  make  its  most  rapid 
strides  forward.  Their  first  notable  effort  was  the  experiment  of 
brick-making  in  winter,  which  was  tried  with  successful  results  at  their 
Concord  Avenue  yard.  Up  to  this  time  there  had  not  been  a  winter 
brick  made  in  Massachusetts  or  New  England.  They  erected  the  neces- 
sary big  drier  or  oven,  and  at  Christmas  time  in  1885  were  turning 
out,  without  difficulty,  and  regardless  of  the  weather,  thousands  of 
brick  a  day.  This  new  method  of  brick-making  is  accomplished  by 
artificially  drying  the  brick  in  an  oven  by  means  of  hot  air  instead  of 
by  exposure  to  the  sun.  Since  it  has  been  adopted  and  proved  to  be  a 
success  by  Parry  Brothers,  several  other  manufacturers  have  followed 
suit. 

The  pro<;ess  of  brick-making  at  the  Concord  Avenue  yard  is  an  inter- 
esting sight.  The  clay,  after  being  dug  out  of  a  large  pit  by  a  steam 
shovel,  instead  of  by  hand,  as  in  former  days,  is  thrown  into  a  truck, 
which  is  hauled  over  a  track  by  steam-power,  the  contents  being 
dumped  into  the  pugging-mills,  and  it  is  then  forced  into  a  revolving 
screen,  which  separates  the  stones  from  the  clay.  The  next  step  is 
putting  it  into  the  brick  machine,  where  the  clay  is  pressed  into 
moulds,  and  comes  out  properly  shaped  at  the  rate  of  ninety  bricks  a 
minute.  The  bricks  are  then  placed  by  hand  upon  other  trucks,  several 
rows  deep,  and  rolled  back  upon  a  track  into  the  huge  drier,  where 
they  remain  about  twenty-four  hours,  under  a  temperature  of  from 
180  to  200  degrees  Fahrenheit.  "When  properly  dried,  the  bricks  are 
hauled  over  a  track  on  the  same  trucks  to  the  kilns,  where  they  are 
taken  off  and  piled  up  forty  bricks  high  in  arches  containing  twenty- 
nine  thousand  each.  It  takes  from  seven  to  ten  days  of  constant  burn- 
ing to  give  the  required  standard  color  and  hardness.  They  are  then 
ready  for  the  market. 

It  was  in  the  winter  of  1885  that  the  Concord  Avenue  yards  were 
purchased ;  since  then  the  company  has  established  a  large  plant  in 
Belmont,  just  over  the  Cambridge  line.  The  Boston  office  of  the  firm 
is  at  No.  10  Broad  Street. 


388  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

THE  BAY  STATE  BRICK  CO. 

was  organized  in  1863  with  a  capital  of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars, 
which  has  since  been  increased  to  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The 
company  employs  from  three  to  four  hundred  men,  and  has  an  annual 
capacity  of  fifty  to  sixty  million  brick.  The  plant  has  the  latest  and 
most  improved  machinery  for  the  prosecution  of  its  work.  The  Bos- 
ton office  of  the  company  is  in  the  Smith  Building,  15  Court  Street. 

D.  WARREN  DE  ROSAY 
manufactures  annually  fifteen  million  brick.   The  business  was  founded 
in  1881.    The  cajjital  invested  is  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  some  fifty 
men  are  employed.    The  company  makes  a  specialty  of  common  sewer 
and  paving  brick.     The  Boston  office  is  at  17  Otis  Street. 

Other  plants  in  Cambridge  are  those  of  N.  M.  Cofran  «fe  Co.,  Concord 
Avenue ;  Edward  A.  Foster,  near  Walden  Street ;  M.  W.  Sands,  Wal- 
den  Street. 

ALEXANDER  McDONALD  &  SON. 

The  first  business  of  the  kind  in  this  city  was  established  by  Alex- 
ander McDonald  in  1856,  when  he  commenced  cutting  marble  for 
monumental  purposes.  Since  that  time  the  business  has  steadily  in- 
creased, changing  somewhat  to  meet  the  demands  when  granite  was 
introduced. 

Mr.  McDonald  invented  the  McDonald  Stone-Cutting  Machine, 
which  is  in  successful  operation  in  the  largest  granite  works  from 
Maine  to  California.  He  was  the  first  to  run  a  quarry  entirely  by 
steam-power  without  the  use  of  horses  or  oxen.  Granite  for  many 
fine  buildings  has  been  furnished  by  the  firm.  Among  them  are  the 
Worcester  Lunatic  Asylum  and  the  Durfee  High  School  at  Fall 
River,  also  memorial  work  of  every  description  at  other  places.  The 
Cambridge  soldiers'  monument,  and  the  soldiers'  monument  for  the  na- 
tional government  in  Salisbury,  N.  C,  erected  in  1872,  —  the  largest 
obelisk  at  that  time  ever  manufactured  in  the  United  States,  measuring 
four  feet  square  and  thirty-one  feet  in  length,  —  were  made  here.  In 
1887  Frank  R.  McDonald  was  taken  into  the  firm,  and  since  that  time 
the  business  has  been  confined  principally  to  fine  monumental  work 
from  all  kinds  of  marble  and  granite. 

It  has  been  found  more  profitable  to  do  the  principal  cutting  and 
heavy  work  at  the  quarries,  though  at  the  Cambridge  works  from 
twenty  to  thirty  men  are  constantly  employed  to  do  the  carving  and 
finishing. 

Some  of  the  finest  monuments,  headstones,  tablets,  and  carved  work 
have  been  made  here,  and  erected  in  Mount  Auburn  and  other  promi- 


WORKERS  IN  STONE  AND  METAL.  389 

nent  cemeteries  in  the  United  States.     The  works  are  located  opposite 
Mount  Auburn  Cemetery  entrance. 

THE  CONNECTICUT  STEAM-STONE  CO., 
incorporated  April  3,  1893,  with  a  paid-up  capital  of  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars, is  located  on  First  Street,  East  Cambridge,  and  is  a  branch  of 
the  Connecticut  Steam  Brown-Stone  Company  of  Portland,  Conn.,  the 
largest  stone-cutting  and  milling  establishment  in  the  country.  E.  Ir- 
ving Bell,  of  Portland,  is  president ;  J.  David  Renton,  treasurer ;  and 
George  Everett,  general  manager.  Their  business  is  that  of  treating 
building-stone.  Since  their  location  in  Cambridge  they  have  invested 
thirty  thousand  dollars  in  the  plant  for  stone  cutting  and  finishing,  and 
have  been  awarded  contracts  for  such  buildings  as  the  Salem  and  West 
Newton  High  Schools,  Lowell  Court-House  and  State  Normal  School. 
They  employ  from  one  hundred  and  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  forty 
men. 

John  J.  Horgan,  manufacturer  of  monuments,  statuary,  posts,  curb- 
ing, etc.,  established  May  7,  1866,  and  located  45  to  83  Main  Street, 
Cambridgeport,  gives  employment  to  twenty  men.  He  uses  a  large 
amount  of  Italian  and  domestic  marble,  and  his  work  is  sent  all  over 
the  country. 

Among  others  engaged  in  stone  working  are :  The  Charles  River 
Stone  Co.,  Austin  Ford  &  Son,  R.  J.  Rutherford,  Union  Marble  and 
Granite  Works,  A.  Higgins  &,  Co.,  and  William  A.  Bertsch. 

DOVER  STAMPING  CO. 

The  Dover  Stamping  Co.  was  founded  in  1833  by  Mr.  Horace 
Whitney,  of  Dover,  N.  H.  Quite  early  in  life  he  conceived  the  idea 
of  making  tin  covers  by  means  of  dies  ;  these  articles  at  that  time 
being  raised  up  by  hammering  by  hand,  a  very  slow  process.  It  was 
not  until  1847  that  he  succeeded  in  doing  such  work.  The  business 
was  carried  along  in  a  small  way  for  a  number  of  years,  and  finally 
it  became  necessary  to  establish  an  office  in  Boston,  Mass.,  which  was 
done  in  1857,  changing  the  firm  name  of  Horace  Whitney  &  Co.  to 
the  present  name  of  Dover  Stamping  Co.  The  principal  part  of  the 
business  was  the  stamping  of  tin  plates  into  tinware  of  all  kinds. 

In  1865  it  was  found  necessary  to  have  the  works  nearer  the  sales- 
room in  Boston,  and  a  tract  of  land  was  bought  in  Cambridge,  and 
extensive  works  erected. 

Mr.  Whitney  was  one  of  the  early  pioneers  in  the  business.  The 
concern  grew,  and  in  1871  it  became  a  corporation,  under  the  general 
laws  of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Whitney  was  chosen  its  president,  and  con- 
tinued in  office  until  his  death,  in  1883.     The  present  management  is 


390  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

wholly  made  up  of  employees  who  have  passed  more  than  thirty  years 
in  its  service. 

Edward  H.  Whitney,  son  of  the  original  founder,  is  president,  as 
well  as  mechanical  superintendent  of  its  factory  in  Cambridge.  Jo- 
seph Moulton  is  business  manager,  and  also  secretary  and  clerk  of  the 
corporation,  and  Horace  N.  Loveland  is  treasurer.  These  three,  with 
Messrs.  Thomas  Fernald    and  A.  O.  Swain,  make  up  the  board  of 

Qirsctors* 

THE  SEAVEY  MANUFACTURING  CO., 

Third  Street,  corner  of  Potter,  are  engaged  in  a  similar  business.  They 
own  a  large  brick  factory,  and  employ  a  considerable  number  of  hands. 
Their  Boston  office  is  on  North  Street. 

WILLIAM  L.  LOCKHART  &  CO. 

William  L.  Lockhart  &  Co.,  manufacturers  of  and  wholesale  dealers 
in  coffins,  caskets,  and  undei'takers'  supplies,  is  the  largest  establish- 
ment of  its  kind  in  New  England.  The  factory  occupies  the  entire 
square  on  Bridge  Street,  between  Third  and  Water  streets,  East  Cam- 
bridge. The  business  was  established  on  Bridge  Street,  near  Prison 
Point  Street,  in  1854,  by  D.  &,  W.  L.  Lockhart,  and  so  continued 
until  1858,  when  W.  L.  Lockhart  became  sole  partner.  In  1860  the 
factory  with  its  contents  was  entirely  destroyed  by  fire.  Mr.  Lockhart 
immediately  rebuilt  on  the  present  site.  January  1,  1893,  a  copart- 
nership was  formed  with  Charles  H.  Lockhart,  Albert  E.  Lockhart, 
and  George  H.  Howard,  under  the  firm  name  of  William  L.  Lockhart 
&  Co.  More  than  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  skilled  operators  are 
given  steady  employment,  and  a  large  business  has  been  built  up, 
extending  throughout  the  United  States,  Canada,  and  portions  of 
South  America. 

The  warerooms  are  situated  in  the  business  portion  of  Boston,  and 
are  readily  accessible  from  all  parts  of  the  city.  The  building  used  is 
of  brick  and  sandstone,  six  stories  high,  located  at  the  junction  of 
Merrimac  and  Causeway  streets,  and  was  erected  by  Mr.  Lockhart  for 
the  express  purpose  for  which  it  is  used.  The  different  floors  of  the 
building  are  divided  as  follows  (each  floor  contains  about  five  thousand 
square  feet)  :  second  floor,  offices  and  salesroom,  and  casket  hardware 
department ;  third  floor,  show-rooms ;  fourth  floor,  for  packing  and 
shipping  ;  fifth  and  sixth  floors,  storage. 

STANDARD  TURNING  WORKS. 

The  Standard  Turning  Works  is  a  corporation   organized  under  the 

laws  of  Massachusetts,  with  a  capital  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars. 

It  was  organized  as  a  corporation  in  1882,  the  business  having  been 

established  in  1862.     The  business  is  the  only  one  of  the  kind  within 


BOXES  AND  HATS.  391 

many  miles  of  Cambridge,  and  consists  of  making,  by  automatic  and 
special  machinery,  bandies  of  all  kinds  and  special  turnings  of  any 
description  ;  in  fact,  any  article  turned  from  wood  or  ivory.  A  large 
variety  of  woods,  both  native  and  foreign,  is  used,  and  the  concern 
claims  to  keep  in  stock  more  kinds  of  wood  than  can  be  found  else- 
where in  America. 

Their  extensive  storehouses  are  filled  with  manufactured  goods,  and 
with  material  ready  to  be  worked  into  any  required  shape.  The  busi- 
ness employs  about  twenty  hands,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  pride  with  the 
management  that  work  is  found  for  their  employees  every  day  in  the 
year  except  legal  holidays.  The  ti-ade  extends  over  the  United  States, 
with  some  export  trade. 

The  officers  of  the  corporation  are  Walter  Ela,  president  and  treas- 
urer, and  Richard  Ela,  manager. 

CHARLES  PLACE. 

Charles  Place,  manufacturer  of  paper  boxes,  is  located  at  134  Nor- 
folk Street.  Mr.  Place  began  business  in  1885,  occupying  a  cellar 
kitchen  on  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Moore  Street,  and  employing 
five  girls  in  the  manufacture  of  fancy  boxes.  The  growth  of  the 
business  soon  compelled  a  change  in  quarters,  and  Mr.  Place  moved 
to  Norfolk  Street.  In  1890  the  building  was  enlarged  to  one  hundred 
by  fifty  feet  and  five  stories  in  height,  and  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
hands  were  employed.  In  1893  another  addition  was  made,  fifty  by 
forty  feet,  and  from  the  present  outlook  more  room  will  soon  be  a 
necessity.     Employment  is  given  to  fifty  men  and  two  hundred  girls. 

The  basement  of  the  factory  is  used  almost  entirely  for  storage  of 
stock ;  the  other  floors  are  given  up  to  the  making  of  boxes,  from  the 
tiniest  pill-box  to  the  largest  used  in  the  clothing  and  fur  trade.  The 
number  of  boxes  turned  out  averages  seventeen  thousand  per  day. 
Machines  specially  designed  for  the  work  are  run  by  steam  power. 

H.  M.  SAWYER  &  SON. 
This  business  was  established  in  1840  by  Mr.  B.  D.  Moody,  and 
between  that  date  and  1877  it  was  conducted  by  Pettingill  &  Blodgett, 
Pettingill,  Moody  «fe  Blodgett,  Pettingill,  Moody  &  Sawyer,  Pettingill 
&  Sawyer,  and  finally,  in  August,  1877,  the  former  partners  having 
retired,  Mr.  H.  M.  Sawyer  became  the  sole  owner.  In  1887  Mr,  C 
H.  Sawyer  being  admitted,  the  firm  was  conducted  under  the  name  of 
H.  M.  Sawyer  &  Son,  under  which  name  it  is  now  being  run.  At  the 
time  the  business  was  established  the  product  consisted  largely  of  water- 
proofed hats,  and  it  was  not  until  some  years  later  that  waterproofed 
clothing  was  manufactured  to  any  great  extent.  Of  late  years,  how- 
ever, clothing  has  become  the  largest  feature  in  the  product,  and  the 
goods  are  now  sold  in  almost  every  country  in  the  world. 


392  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

HENRY  THAYER  &  CO. 
In  1847  Henry  Thayer  was  the  proprietor  of  a  retail  apothecary 
store  on  Main  Street,  Cambridgeport,  and  began  in  a  small  way  to 
manufacture  fluid  extracts.  Beginning  in  a  little  room  in  the  rear  of 
his  store,  the  business  increased  rapidly,  and  he  soon  had  to  seek  larger 
quarters.  A  small  two-story  building  was  erected,  but  in  a  year  or  two 
this  too  proved  insufficient,  and  they  removed  to  the  brick  building  on 
Main  Street  known  as  the  Douglass  Block.  In  the  mean  time  John 
P,  Putnam  and  Francis  Hardy  had  become  members  of  the  firm.  In 
1870  they  erected  the  brick  building  on  Broadway  which  they  now  oc- 
cupy as  a  laboratory.  The  building  is  four  stories  with  a  basement, 
sixty  by  eighty  feet,  with  an  annex  sixty  by  forty  feet.  The  firm  is 
recognized  as  among  the  leading  manufacturing  chemists  of  the  day, 
their  goods  being  sent  aU  over  the  world. 

GOEPPER  BROTHERS. 

The  steam  barrel  factory  of  William  and  Gustavus  Goepper  is  lo- 
cated on  the  corner  of  Ninth  and  Spring  streets,  East  Cambridge.  The 
business  was  begun  in  Charlestown  in  1871,  and  removed  to  Cambridge 
in  1872  and  located  on  Gore  Street.  In  1880  the  firm  purchased  their 
present  location,  which  has  a  frontage  of  two  hundred  and  ten  feet  on 
the  Grand  Junction  Railroad,  and  which  enables  them  to  unload  cooper- 
age stock  direct  from  the  cars  to  the  dry-houses  and  storehouses.  The 
capacity  of  the  works  is  about  thirty-five  hundred  new  and  fifteen 
hundred  second-hand  barrels  per  day.  The  capital  engaged  is  thirty 
thousand  dollars,  and  employment  is  given  to  forty  men.  The  pay-roll 
is  about  twenty  thousand  dollars  per  annum. 

NEW  ENGLAND  SPRING-BED  CO. 
This  company  began  business  in  Boston  in  1890.  Soon  after  it 
removed  to  Cambridgeport,  and  it  now  occupies  the  brick  factory  on 
Osborn  Street,  corner  of  Main.  It  makes  a  specialty  of  spiral  spring- 
beds  and  woven  wire  cots.  It  also  imports  brass  and  iron  bedsteads. 
The  latter  are  finished  at  the  factory  on  Main  Street,  near  the  spring- 
bed  factory,  where  it  has  a  large  oven  for  baking  the  enamel.  The 
company  has  a  well-equipped  plant  for  the  work  required,  and  in  the 
busy  season  employs  about  forty  hands.  The  output  is  sold  mainly 
in  New  England,  although  there  is  some  export  trade.  Elmer  H. 
Grey  is  president,  and  M.  S.  Fickett  treasurer,  of  the  company.  The 
Boston  office  is  90  Canal  Street. 


CANS,  GLASS,  HATS,  AND  BEDS.  393 

CHARLES  E.  PIERCE  &  CO., 
manufacturers  of  tin  cans,  442  Main  Street,  began  business  in  1875, 
and  at  present  employ  about  twenty  hands.  They  make  a  specialty 
of  cracker,  varnish,  and  syrup  cans,  the  work  being  done  with  dies  and 
machinery.  They  are  the  patentees  of  the  process  of  making  solder- 
less  square  tin  boxes  for  the  use  of  biscuit  and  confectionery  manufac- 
turers, also  patentees  of  the  key-opening  screw  can-top,  used  in  all 
kinds  of  preserve  cans.  The  concern  uses  mostly  American  tin  plate, 
made  in  sizes  to  suit  their  work.  The  manufactured  goods  are  sold 
all  over  New  England,  and  shipped  West  as  far  as  St.  Paul.  The 
partners  are  C.  E.  Pierce  and  Charles  Waugh. 

P.  J.  Mcelroy  &  co. 

Glass-making  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  manufacturing  industries 
in  Cambridge  ;  in  fact,  the  industry  was  once  a  prominent  one  in  New 
England.  Com'petition  in  the  West  and  the  ability  to  produce  a 
cheaper  glass  has  caused  an  almost  entire  removal  of  the  industry  to 
that  section.  P.  J.  McElroy  &  Co.  are  the  only  manufacturers  of 
glass  left  in  Cambridge.  The  business  was  established  in  1853,  and  the 
product  —  glass  tubes,  philosophical  and  surgical  instruments  —  is  sold 
over  the  United  States,  with  large  exports  to  South  America,  Japan, 
and  Australia. 

CARLOS  L.  PAGE  &  CO. 
Carlos  L.  Page  &  Co.,  located  at  Nos.  164  to  174  Broadway,  Cam- 
bridgeport,  have  carried  on  the  business  of  box-making  for  ten  years. 
They  occupy  a  four-story  brick  factory  seventy-five  by  forty  feet,  which, 
with  other  buildings,  covers  an  area  of  about  forty  thousand  square  feet. 
The  factory  is  fully  equipped  with  all  modern  machinery  necessary 
to  carry  on  a  large  business.  The  lumber  used  in  the  construction 
of  boxes  is  brought  from  Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  and  about 
four  million  feet  is  used  annually.  Employment  is  given  to  sixty 
men. 

DAVID  WILCOX  &  CO. 

This  business  was  established  in  Cambridgeport  in  1860.  The 
company  manufactures  fine-grade  stiff,  silk,  and  soft  hats  for  the  retail 
trade  throughout  the  country.  The  capacity  of  the  factory  is  from  sixty 
to  seventy  dozen  per  day.  One  hundred  and  fifty  hands  are  employed, 
and  the  weekly  pay-roll  is  from  fifteen  hundred  to  two  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  partners  are  David  Wilcox,  Elbert  P.  Wilcox,  and  F.  R. 
Going. 

HOWE  SPRING-BED  CO. 

The  manufacture  of  spring-beds  was  established  in  Cambridge  in 


394  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

1854  by  Tyler  and  Otis  Howe,  father  and  son.  The  elder  Howe  died 
in  1880,  and  the  business  was  continued  by  his  son  until  his  death  in 
1891.  It  was  then  purchased  by  Melvin  M.  Hannum,  the  present 
owner.  Three  floors  of  a  brick  building  eighty  feet  by  forty  are  occu- 
pied in  the  manufacture  of  spring-beds,  cots,  and  berth  bottoms.  The 
product  is  sold  over  the  United  States,  with  some  exports  to  England. 

REVERE  SUGAR  REFINERY. 
The  Revere  Sugar  Refinery,  situated  between  the  Boston  &  Lowell 
Railroad  and  Miller's  River,  East  Cambridge,  began  operations  in 
1871.  They  occupy  an  extensive  building  of  six  stories,  and  employ 
directly  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  men,  with  an  annual  pay-roll  of 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  They  also  furnish  steady  work  to  a 
considerable  number  of  coopers  and  teamsters.  The  daily  capacity  of 
the  works  is  about  fourteen  hundred  barrels  of  refined  sugar. 

JEROME  MARBLE  &  CO. 
This   company  manufactures  oils,  starches,  dye-stuffs .  and  chemi- 
cals, and  is  located  on  Fifth  Street,  corner  of  Rogers,  Cambridgeport. 
The  firm  is  sole  agent  for  the  National  Linseed  Oil  Company,  and 
has  Boston  offices  at  42  Pearl  Street. 

A.  &  E.  BURTON  &  CO. 
This  business  was  established  in  1844  by  Harvey  &  Burton,  and  is 
located  at  Nos.  122  and  124  Harvard  Street,  Cambridgeport.  They 
manufacture  brushes  and  feather  dusters  to  the  value  of  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars  annually,  and  employ  from  seventy-five  to  one  hun- 
dred hands. 

JAMES  A.  FURFEY, 
manufacturer  of  cocoa  mats  and  matting,  is  the  successor  of  the  busi- 
ness of  James  Furfey,  which  was  established  in  1848.     Factory  and 
office,  Brookline  and  Erie  streets,  Cambridgeport. 

F.  M.  EATON, 
No.  351  Broadway,  makes  bristle  brushes  and  corn  brooms. 

JOHN  C.  DOW  &  CO. 
are  manufacturers  of  fertilizers,  and  their  factory  is  located  on  Port- 
land Street,  East  Cambridge.     Boston  office,  13  Chatham  Street. 

C.  W.  H.  MOULTON  &  CO., 
Gore  Street,   East  Cambridge,  claim  the  honor  of  being  the    oldest 
ladder  manufactory  in  America.     Their  product  is  extension  ladders, 
step  ladders,  trestles,  clothes  horses,  lawn   settees,  splint   and   reed 
chairs. 


THE  STREET  RAILWAYS.  395 

THE  W.  F.  WEBSTER  CEMENT  CO. 
has  a  factory  on  Albany  Street,  Cambridgeport,  and  there  manufac- 
tures elastic  cement. 

THE  BARBER  ASPHALT  PAVING  CO., 
makers  of  Trinidad  Lake  asphalt  pavements,  are   located  on  First 
Street,  neai"  the  West  Boston  Bridge.     Mr.  Charles  Harris  is  manager. 

W.  W.  REID  MANUFACTURING  CO., 
436  Main  Street,  manufactures  shoe  blacking,  liquid  and  paste  belt 
dressing,  and  liquid  and  paste  metal  polish. 

BREED  WEEDER  CO., 
State  Street,  corner  of  Osborn,  manufacture  farming  tools.     "William 
O.  Breed  is  the  manager  of  the  business,  and  the  Boston  office  is  at 
26  Merchants'  Row. 

CAMBRIDGE  VINEGAR  CO., 
manufacturers  of  vinegar,  are  located  at  75  Main  Street,  Cambridge- 
port. 

DAVID  W.  DAVIS, 

manufacturer  of  bluing,  is  located  on  Clay  Street. 

STREET  RAILWAYS. 

The  "West  Boston  Bridge  was  opened  in  1793,  and  soon  afterwards 
a  public  conveyance  was  established,  which  made  a  trip  once  a  day  ; 
afterwards  two  trips  were  made  daUy,  leaving  Cambridge  at  eight 
o'clock  A.  M.  and  two  o'clock  p.  M.,  returning  at  noon  and  six  o'clock 
p.  M.     The  Cambridge  stage  started  from  Boy  den's.  Dock  Square. 

Previous  to  that  date,  from  the  time  of  the  first  settlement,  access  to 
Boston  was  difficult.  There  was  a  choice,  it  is  true,  of  ferries,  and 
one  might  cross  the  river  at  Charlestown,  or  at  the  foot  of  the  present 
Boylston  Street,  whence  the  route  lay  through  Roxbury  and  across  the 
Neck,  then  only  wide  enough  for  the  passage  of  Washington  Street. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  century  Reed  &>  Soper  kept  a  livery  stable 
on  Dunster  Street  and  ran  a  line  of  three-seated  stages  to  Boston, 
passing  through  Main  Street  and  over  the  West  Boston  Bridge. 

In  1826  Captain  Ebenezer  Kimball,  the  then  landlord  of  a  tavern 
on  Pearl  Street,  Cambridgeport,  started  the  "  hourly."  Later,  a  man 
named  Tarbox  ran  a  two-horse  stage  line  between  Cambridge  and 
Boston.  Afterwards,  Thomas  Stearns,  Tarbox,  Dexter  Pratt,  and  a 
man  named  Sargent  put  on  a  four-horse  omnibus  line.  Stearns 
bought  out  his  partners,  and  carried  the  business  on  for  a  long  time. 
Mr.  Stearns,  who  is  now  living  on  Farwell  Place,  Old  Cambridge, 
says  his  tolls  amounted  to  one  thousand  dollars  per  month. 


396  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

Abel  Willard  and  Mark  Bills  also  had  stage  lines,  but  they  were 
afterwards  consolidated  with  those  of  Stearns  &  Kimball,  and  ran 
until  they  sold  out  to  the  horse  railroad.  Before  the  consolidation  of 
the  rival  stage  lines,  competition  was  so  great  that  cabs  were  put  on  for 
the  purpose  of  calling  at  private  residences  for  passengers  upon  proper 
notice  being  given. 

The  "  Harvard  Branch  "  had  a  brief  existence.  It  was  a  spur  from 
the  Fitchburg  Railroad  to  a  point  near  the  Common,  between  the  Law 
School  and  the  Gymnasium  in  Old  Cambridge.  Its  officers  were 
Gardiner  G.  Hubbard,  president,  and  Dr.  Estes  Howe,  treasurer, 
who,  with  James  Dana,  of  Charlestown,  Oliver  Hastings,  Joseph  W. 
Ward,  and  William  L.  Whitney,  of  Cambridge,  constituted  the  board 
of  directors. 

The  Cambridge  Railroad  was  incorporated  in  1853,  and  was  leased 
soon  afterwards  to  the  Union  Railway.  The  story  of  the  beginnings 
of  this  road,  by  Mr.  Frederick  T.  Stevens,  for  many  years  its  treasurer, 
is  of  exceeding  interest :  — 

"  The  Union  Railway  Company  was  incorporated  under  the  laws  of 
this  commonwealth  and  approved  by  the  governor,  Henry  J.  Gardner, 
May  15,  1855.  The  first  meeting  was  held  October  8  of  the  same 
year. 

"  The  principal  instigator  in  this  then  great  work  was  our  well- 
known  citizen,  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard,  to  whom  the  city  of  Cambridge 
owes  a  debt  of  gratitude.  He  was  the  prime  mover  in  almost  every 
project  at  that  time  for  the  practical  benefit  of  the  city.  He  was 
aided  by  such  men  as  the  late  Judge  Willard  Phillips,  Herbert  H. 
Stimpson,  Charles  C.  Little,  Estes  Howe,  and  John  Livermore.  These 
men  believed  that  the  time  would  come  when  the  pumps  would  get 
rusty  and  the  wells  go  dry ;  that  whales  would  become  scarce  and 
candle  dips  would  not  afford  the  light  needed ;  and  that  omnibuses 
would  not  accommodate  the  requirements  of  the  generations  to  come, 
and  hence  we  have  to-day,  as  the  results  of  their  foresight,  the  Cam- 
bridge Water-Works,  the  Gas  Light  Company,  and  the  successor  of 
the  Union  Railway  Company,  —  the  West  End  Company.  Let  no  one 
suppose  for  one  instant,  however,  that  the  originators  of  these  works 
were  any  more  philanthropic  than  some  of  the  railway  kings  of  the 
present  day. 

"  The  first  call  for  a  meeting  of  the  stockholders  of  the  Union  Rail- 
way Company  was  dated  September  11,  1855,  and  signed  by  the  late 
John  C.  Stiles  as  *  one  of  the  persons  named  in  the  act  of  incorpora- 
tion.' The  meeting  was  held  at  the  office  of  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard, 
5  Congress  Street,  Boston,  and  was  adjourned,  for  want  of  a  quorum, 
to  October  8,  at  the  City  Exchange  Building.     At  that  meeting  the 


THE  STREET  RAILWAYS.  397 

act  of  incorporation  was  accepted.  The  meeting  was  called  to  order 
by  INlr.  Hubbard,  who  was  chosen  chairman,  and  the  late  Dr.  Estes 
Howe  was  elected  clerk  pro  tempore.  The  officers  elected  were : 
directors,  H.  H.  Stimpson,  Willard  Phillips,  Charles  C  Little,  and 
G.  G.  Hubbard ;  Estes  Howe  was  elected  clerk  and  treasurer.  Of 
these  Mr.  Hubbard  is  now  the  only  living  representative.  Mr.  Stimp- 
son was  appointed  a  committee  to  procure  subscriptions  to  the  capital 
stock,  and  Messrs.  Little,  Hubbard,  and  Stimpson  a  committee  to 
arrange  the  lease  with  the  Cambridge  Railroad  Company,  who  were 
the  owners  of  the  corporate  right  to  lay  tracks  in  the  streets. 

"  At  this  time  it  was  hard  to  find  any  one  who  would  take  stock 
in  any  such  concern,  and  the  Union  Railway  Company  was  incorpo- 
rated for  the  purpose  of  leasing  any  or  all  of  the  tracks  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Railroad  Company,  or  of  any  connecting  tracks.  Messrs.  Hub- 
bard and  Stimpson  were  a  committee  to  confer  with  the  Cambridge 
omnibus  proprietors  with  reference  to  the  purchase  of  their  property. 
The  committee  on  cars  was  Messrs.  Hubbard,  Stimpson,  and  William 
A.  Saunders.  Adjourned  meetings  of  the  company  were  held,  at 
which  no  quorum  was  present.  Finally,  on  the  19th,  a  meeting  was 
lield,  and  a  code  of  by-laws  adopted.  When  enough  of  these  brave 
fellows  could  be  brought  together,  which  was  seldom,  they  evidently 
made  them  attend  to  business,  for  at  a  protracted  meeting  on  the  27th 
day  of  this  same  month,  the  long-mooted  question  of  procuring  cars 
was  settled,  and  Mr.  Hubbard  was  appointed  a  committee  to  procure 
five  cars  from  Messrs.  Eaton  &  Gilbert.  These  were  the  first  pur- 
chased by  any  street  railway  company  in  the  city  of  Boston. 

*'  Speaking  of  these  cars  recalls  to  my  memory  that  the  late  Abel 
Willard,  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  omnibus  line,  once  told  me  that 
he,  with  many  others,  rode  into  Boston  (not  in  a  car,  however)  to  view 
the  spectacle  of  one  of  these  same  cars  coming  down  Cambridge  Street 
hill.  They  did  not  believe  that  there  was  power  enough  in  the  brakes 
to  hold  the  car,  but  that  it  would  run  upon  and  injure  the  horses,  and 
finally  land  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  Charles  River.  A  great 
change  came  over  the  party  when  they  saw  how  nicely  everything 
operated,  and  '  Uncle  Abel '  said  that  from  that  time  he  was  satisfied 
that  his  omnibus  line  had  got  to  go  under. 

"  Meetings  of  the  directors  at  this  time  were  very  frequent,  but  no 
business  of  importance  was  transacted  which  would  interest  the  public 
at  this  day.  The  subject  which  seemed  to  interest  the  directors  most 
was  the  question  of  purchasing  two  lots  on  Lambert  [now  Huron]  Ave- 
nue ;  another  subject  agitated  at  this  time  was  the  purchase  of  iron 
cars  —  '  electrics  '  were  not  dreamed  of  in  those  days.  The  first  pres- 
ident of  the  company,  Mr.  H.  H.  Stimpson,  was  elected  December  6, 
1855,  and  at  the  same  meeting  an  assessment  of  twenty-five  per  centum 


398  FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 

on  the  capital  stock  was  laid,  and  the  following  vote  was  unanimously 
passed  :  '  That  the  president  be  authorized  to  contract  with  E.  Tucker 
for  twenty  (20)  harnesses,  provided  he  will  take  one  share  of  stock 
in  part  payment  of  the  same.'  Times  have  changed  somewhat,  and  it 
is  not  quite  so  difficult  to  dispose  of  West  End  preferred.  On  the  19th 
of  December,  1855,  the  following  rates  were  established  for  the  om- 
nibuses :  to  Mount  Auburn,  Old  Cambridge,  and  Brattle  Street,  15 
cents ;  to  Porter's  Station,  10  cents ;  to  Cambridgeport,  8  cents  ;  12 
tickets  to  Old  Cambridge,  $1 ;  15  tickets  to  Cambridgeport,  $1 ;  13 
packages  of  $1  tickets  for  $12. 

"  It  was  at  this  time  that  Dana  Street  was  established  as  the  divid- 
ing line  between  Cambridgeport  and  Old  Cambridge,  and  that  con- 
ductors were  obliged  to  furnish  bonds  in  the  sum  of  five  hundred 
dollars,  with  two  sureties,  for  the  faithful  performance  of  their  duties. 

"  The  following  action  of  the  directors  was  highly  appreciated  by 
many  of  the  passengers,  and  was  the  cause  of  great  rejoicing  among 
those  who  derived  a  benefit  from  it,  even  if  they  did  have  to  pay  for 
it :  '  That  the  one-horse  hack  be  kept  at  the  Port  to  call  for  and  take 
passengers,  and  that  ten  (10)  cents  be  charged  for  a  single  passage, 
and  five  cents  each  for  two  if  deposited  at  the  same  point,  and  that  a 
suitable  vehicle  be  kept  at  Old  Cambridge  to  run  at  the  same  rates. 
For  all  distances  over  half  a  mile  from  the  respective  offices  double 
fares  to  be  charged  ;  tickets  to  be  issued  for  all  the  omnibuses  and 
hacks.' 

"  At  this  time  the  way-fare  was  established  at  five  cents,  and  chil- 
dren between  the  ages  of  four  and  fourteen  were  charged  the  way- 
fare  instead  of  the  fares  heretofore  fixed  upon  for  adult  passengers. 
On  the  first  day  of  March,  1856,  the  fares  were  reduced,  being  fixed 
at  ten  cents,  and  twelve  tickets  for  one  dollar,  and  to  Old  Cambridge, 
thirteen  cents,  and  ten  tickets'  for  one  dollar. 

"  Now  comes  the  question  of  the  removal  of  snow  from  the  street  in 
Boston,  —  nothing  being  said  about  snow  in  the  streets  of  this  city. 
March  12, 1856,  it  was  voted  by  the  board  of  directors :  '  That  Mr. 
Hubbard  be  a  committee  with  power  to  make  arrangements  with  the 
city  of  Boston  for  the  removal  of  the  snow  and  ice  from  Cambridge 
Street,  from  the  Revere  House  to  the  bridge,  provided  the  same  can 
be  done  at  a  cost  of  not  over  one  hundred  dollars  to  the  company.' 
Comments  upon  the  action  of  the  company  relative  to  the  removal  of 
snow  at  that  time  are  unnecessary,  but  of  one  thing  we  are  assured : 
there  were  no  '  snow  fights  ; '  they  knew  their  business  and  considered 
their  money  well  invested.  March  29, 1856,  Mr.  William  A.  Saunders 
was  elected  a  director  in  place  of  Mr.  John  Livermore,  who  had 
declined  a  reelection. 

"  Those  who  are  interested  in  the  subject  of  '  dead-head  passes '  may 


THE  CHARLES  RIVER  RAILROAD.  399 

like  to  know  that  even  as  far  back  as  1856  passes  were  given,  and 
undoubtedly  '  for  a  consideration.'  The  first  car  was  run  March  26, 
1856,  and  three  days  after  the  board  voted  :  '  That  tickets  be  given  to 
Brattle  House,  Revere  House,  and  to  the  "  Cambridge  Chronicle."  '  At 
this  time  the  Brattle  House  was,  I  think,  under  the  charge  of  Landlord 
Willard,  and  the  '  Chronicle '  was  the  only  paper  published  in  this 
city." 

Many  complaints  were  made  by  the  people  of  Cambridge  that  the 
accommodations  furnished  by  the  Cambridge  Railway  were  insufficient ; 
this  culminated  in  the  incorporation  of  the  Charles  Ri,ver  Railroad  in 
1881.  Tracks  were  laid  by  this  company  from  Harvard  Square  through 
Brighton  (now  Boylston),  Mount  Auburn  streets,  Putnam  Avenue,  and 
Green  Street  to  Central  Square,  Main,  Columbia,  and  Hampshire 
streets  to  the  junction  of  the  tracks  of  the  Cambridge  Railway  on 
Broadway,  the  latter  company  having  refused  them  the  right  to  make 
connection  on  Main  Street.  The  Charles  River  Company  laid  tracks 
also  from  Porter's  Station  to  Hampshire  Street,  and  fi'om  Union 
Square,  Somerville,  through  Springfield  Street,  connecting  with  Hamp- 
shire Street  tracks  at  Inman  Street ;  they  also  built  tracks  through 
Brookline  Street.  The  first  board  of  directors  was  composed  of  C. 
E.  Raymond,  Emmons  Raymond,  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin,  Henry  O. 
Houghton,  Fred  S.  Davis,  Henry  F.  Woods,  of  Somerville,  Samuel 
L.  Montague,  James  H.  Hilton,  and  Edmund  Reardon.  Charles  E. 
Raymond  was  president,  and  Daniel  U.  Chamberlin  treasurer. 

The  Cambridge  and  Charles  River  roads  became  a  part  of  the  "West 
End  system  in  1887. 

The  West  End  now  controls  practically  all  the  street-car  lines  cen- 
tring in  Boston ;  it  has  adopted  the  overhead  electric  system,  and  is 
furnishing  service  and  equipment  unsurpassed  by  any  street  railway  in 
America. 


400 


FINANCIAL  AND  MANUFACTURING. 


To  illustrate  the  extent  of  the  travel  between  Boston  and  Cambridge, 
William  J.  Marvin,  Bridge  Commissioner,  has  prepared  the  following 
table :  — 

Traffic  over    West   Boston,  Craigie,   Prison   Point,  and  Harvard 
bridges,  April  18,  1896,  between  the  hours  of  6  A.  M.  and  7  P.  M. 


Teams. 

HoTsea.    People. 

Bicycles. 

Cars. 

Passengers. 

West  Boston  Bridge     .     . 
Craigie  Bridge  .       ... 
Prison  Point  Bridge      .     . 
Harvard  Bridge  .... 

4,035 

7,284 
1,975 
3,801 

5,466 

10,926 

2,916 

4,851 

9,902 

14,913 

3,962 

7,998 

246 

202 

95 

3,352 

1,046 
563 

478 

20,231 
12,695 

13,750 

Total 

17,095 

24,159 

36,775 

3,895 

2,087 

46,676 

The  writer  wishes  to  express  his  regret  that  this  exhibit  of 
the  financial  and  industrial  institutions  of  Cambridge  is  not  en- 
tirely complete.  Opportunity  was  given  to  every  manufacturer 
to  make  a  presentation  of  his  share  in  the  general  work  of  the 
community,  and  there  has  been  no  omission  except  when  that 
opportunity  has  been  neglected.  Sufficient  information  has, 
however,  been  offered  to  surprise  all  who  have  not  kept  pace 
with  the  rapid  advance  of  the  city  in  these  respects,  and  far 
more  than  enough  to  make  good  the  assertion  that,  as  a  manu- 
facturing centre,  Cambridge  stands  foremost,  and  has  before  it 
a  future  which  must  fulfill  the  most  brilliant  expectations.  The 
survey,  brief  as  it  necessarily  is,  shows  that  many  sites  are  left 
on  which  great  industrial  establishments  can  be  planted,  amid 
surroundings  which  must  prove  satisfactory  to  the  capitalist  as 
well  as  a  blessing  to  the  employee. 


GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE, 

1896. 


MAYOR. 
Hon.  William  A.  Bancroft. 


BOARD  OF  ALDERMEN. 

President,  John  R.  Fairbairn. 

Russell  Bradford.  Peter  P.  Bleiler. 

Marshall  N.  Stearns.  Clarence  H.  Douglass. 

Henry  White.  Charles  P.  Keith. 

Charles  M.  Conant.  Watson  G.  Cutter. 

Peter  F.  Rourke.  James  A.  Wood. 

Clerk,  Edward  J.  Brandon. 


COMMON  COUNCIL. 
President,  John  L.  Odiorne. 

Ward  One. 
Melville  C.  Beedle.  George  E.  Saunders. 

William  F.  Brooks.  Walter  C.  Wardwell. 

Ward  Two. 
Sedley  Chaplin.  Charles  H.  Montague. 

William  R.  Davis.  Clement  G.  Morgan. 

John  L.  Odiorne. 

Ward  Three. 
John  J.  Ahern.  John  J.  Scott. 

Cornelius  Minihan.  Frank  H.  Willard. 

Ward  Four. 
David  W.  Butterfield.  Eben  H.  Googins. 

Daniel  S.  Coolidge.  Hamilton  H.  Perkins. 

Origen  O.  Preble. 

Ward  Five. 
Albert  S.  Apsey.  Robert  A.  Parry. 

Clerk.  Page. 

Edward  A.  Counihan.  Charles  M.  Jqne8. 


402  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE   CITY. 

CITY  CLERK. 
Edwakd  J.  Brandon. 

ASSISTANT  CITY  CLERK.  CITY  MESSENGER. 

Albert  M.  Pear.  Francis  L.  Pratt. 


CLERK  OF  COMMITTEES. 
John  McDuffie. 


CITY  AUDITOR. 
Harry  T.  Upham. 

CITY  TREASURER. 
William  W.  Dallinger. 


BOARD  OF  HEALTH. 

E.  Edwin  Spencer,  M.  D.,  Chairman. 

Charles  Harris.  Edmund  M.  Parker. 

City  Physician,  E.  Edwin  Spencer.  M.  D. 

Clerk,  James  B.  Soper. 

Health  Officer,  Edwin  Farnham,  M.  D. 


ASSESSORS. 
Joshua  G.  Gooch.  Samuel  L.  Montague. 

Andrew  J.  Green. 

ASSISTANT  ASSESSORS. 
Warren  I  vers.  Daniel  B.  Shaughnessy. 

John  M.  Davis.  Arthur  M.  Stewart. 

Edwin  K.  Hall. 


SCHOOL  COMMITTEE. 
William  A.  Bancroft,  Mayor,  ex  officio  Chairman. 

Ward  One. 
Frank  W.  Taussig.  William  T.  Piper. 

Elizabeth  Q.  Bolles. 

■     Ward  Two. 
Robert  O.  Fuller.  Caroline  L.  Edgeblt. 

Alphonso  E.  White. 

Ward  Tliree. 
Edward  B.  Malley.  Willlam  H.  Clancy 

Anne  Clark  Stewart. 

Ward   Four. 
Mary  E.  Mitchell.  Charles  F.  Wyman. 

William  A.  Munroe. 


GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CITY.  403 

Ward  Five. 
George  P.  Johkson.  Carolyn  P.  Chase. 

Frederic  W.  Taylor. 

Secretary,  Sanford  B.  Hubbard. 

Superintendent  of  Schools,  Francis  Cogswell. 


COMMISSIONERS  OF  THE  SINKING  FUNDS. 

Charles  H.  Saunders,  Chairman. 

John  C.  Bullard.  Andrew  J.  Lovell. 

George  H.  Howard.  J.  Henry  Russell. 

Frank  A.  Allen. 


CAMBRIDGE  WATER  BOARD. 

James  M.  W.  Hall,  President. 

Stillman  F.  Kelley.  Frank  A.  Allen. 

Wellington  Fillmore.  George  H.  Howard. 

Clerk  of  the  Board,  Walter  H.  Harding. 

Acting  Superintendent  of  Water-Works,  Edwin  C.  Brooks. 

Assistant  Superintendent  of  Water-Works,  Charles  B.  Parker. 

Pumping  Engineer,  Edwin  C.  Brooks. 

Water  Registrar,  Walter  H.  Habdino. 


PARK  COMMISSIONERS. 

Henry  D.  Yerxa,  President. 
Rev.  John  O'Brien.  George  Howland  Cox. 

General  Superintendent  of  Parks,  George  R.  Cook. 


TRUSTEES  OF  CAMBRIDGE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

William  Taqgard  Piper,  President. 

Augustine  J.  Daly.  Samuel  L.  Montague. 

William  J.  Rolfe.  Albert  M.  Barnes. 

Thomas  W.  Higginson.  Jabez  Fox. 

Librarian,  W.  L.  R.  Gifford. 


OVERSEERS  OF  THE  POOR. 

William  W.  Burrage,  Chairman. 

Charles  Walker.  Alexander  Millan. 

Stephen  Anderson.  Charles  Bullock. 

Secretary,  David  P.  Muzzey. 

Visitor,  Vespasian  Danforth. 
Superintendent  of  Almshouse,  Martin  L.  Eldridge. 
Assistant  City  Physician,  Lewis  L.  Bryant,  M.  D. 


404  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CITY. 

CEMETERY  COMMISSIONERS. 

George  S.  Saunders,  Chairman. 

William  A.  Bertsch.  Nathan  C.  Lombard. 

Charles  O.  Welch.  John  H.  H.  McNambe. 

Herbert  A.  Chase. 

Clerk  of  the  Board,  Edward  J.  Brandon. 

Superintendent  of  Cemetery,  Charles  S.  Childs. 


REGISTRARS  OF  VOTERS. 

Isaac  Bradford,  Chairman. 

William  J.  Breen.  Isaac  S.  Pear. 

James  Cox. 


CITY  SOLICITOR. 
Gilbert  A.  A.  Pevey. 


CITY  ENGINEER. 
Lewis  M.  Hastings. 

SUPERINTENDENT  OF  SEWERS. 
Theodore  L.  Pike. 


INSPECTOR  OF  WIRES  AND  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  LAMPS. 
Charles  F.  Hopewell. 


HARBOR  MASTER. 
William  J.  Marvin. 


SUPERINTENDENT  OF  STREETS. 
Charles  A.  Brown. 


SUPERINTENDENT    OF    PUBLIC    BUILDINGS    AND  INSPECTOR  OF 

BUILDINGS. 
William  H.  Gray. 

BOARD  OF   ENGINEERS  OF  FIRE  DEPARTMENT. 

Chief  Engineer. 

Thomas  J.  Casey. 

Call  District  Chiefs. 

Nathaniel  W.  Bunker.  Charles  W.  Brackett. 

William  B.  Cade. 


GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CITY.  405 

POLICE  DEPAKTMENT. 

Chief  of  Police. 
LOTHKOP  J.  Cloyes. 

Captains  of  Police. 
Mark  J.  Folsom.  John  F.  Murray.  Thomas  H.  Lucy. 


INSPECTOR  OF  MILK. 
Frank  A.  Dunbar,  M.  D. 


SEALER  OF  WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. 
Albert  F.  Roberts. 


THE   CELEBRATION  OF   THE  COMPLETION  OF 
THE  HALF-CENTURY. 

GENERAL  COMMITTEE. 

The  Mayor,  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  the  Common  Council,  and  the  follow- 
ing Citizens  :  — 


Mr.  Henry  O.  Houghton, 
Hon.  John  Read, 
Hon.  Charles  H.  Saunders, 
Mr.  Mason  G.  Parker, . 
Hon.  Leander  M.  Haunum, 
Mr,  John  H.  Ponce, 
Mr.  Edmund  Reardon, 
Mr.  John  Hopewell,  Jr., 
Mr.  Theodore  H.  Raymond, 
Mr.  Henry  D.  Yerxa, 
Dr.  Charles  Bullock, 
Mr.  Otis  S.  Brown, 
Rev.  David  N.  Beach, 
Mr.  George  Howland  Cox, 
Col.  Thomas  W.  Higginson, 
Hon.  William  B.  Durant, 
Hon.  William  E.  Russell, 
Mr.  Edwin  B.  Hale, 
Mr.  Edward  B.  James, 
Gen.  Edgar  R.  Champlin, 
Rev.  George  W.  Bicknell, 
Hon.  John  W.  Coveney, 
Mr.  Benjamin  G.  Hazel, 
Rev.  Thomas  Scully, 
Mr.  William  E.  Thomas, 
Mr.  Walter  H.  Lerned, 


Mr.  John  H.  Corcoran, 
Mr.  George  Close, 
Rev.  John  O'Brien, 
Mr.  William  Goepper, 
Mr.  Joseph  J.  Kelley, 
Mr.  John  S.  Clary, 
Mr.  Justin  Winsor, 
Mr.  George  H.  Howard, 
Mr.  James  S.  Price, 
Mr.  John  T.  Shea, 
Mr.  Charles  W.  Dailey, 
Mr.  James  F.  Aylward, 
Mr.  Joseph  P.  Gibson, 
Mr.  William  A.  Munroe, 
Mr.  Warren  F.  Spalding, 
Mr.  Isaac  S.  Pear, 
Dr.  James  A.  Dow, 
Mr.  John  D.  Billings, 
Mr.  Charles  W.  Cheney, 
Hon.  Chester  W.  Kingsley, 
Mr.  Stillman  F.  Kelley, 
Mr.  David  T.  Dickinson, 
Mr.  Thomas  F.  Dolan, 
Mr.  John  E.  Parry, 
Mr.  George  A.  Allison, 
Mr.  John  C.  Watson. 


Chairman,  Hon.  William  A.  Bancroft  ;  Secretary,  Eben  W.  Pike  ;  Treas- 
urer, President  John  L.  Odiorne. 

CHIEF  MARSHAL. 
Hon.  John  Read. 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEES. 

FINANCE. 


President  John  R.  Fairbairn,  chairman;  President  John  L.  Odiorne, 
clerk  ;  William  E.  Thomas,  assistant  clerk  ;  Messrs.  Stillman  F.  Kelley, 
Henry  O.  Houghton,  John  H.  Ponce,  and  John  Hopewell,  Jr. 


THE  ANNIVERSARY  COMMITTEES.  407 


SCHOOLS. 

Alderman  James  A.  Wood,  chairman  ;  Councilman  George  E.  Saunders, 
clerk  ;  Councilman  Daniel  S.  Coolidge,  Messrs.  William  A.  Munroe, 
Thomas  W.  Higginson,  Rev.  Thomas  Scully,  Joseph  J.  Kelley,  Charles 
Bullock,  and  John  C.  Watson. 

PUBLIC   MEETING. 

Mr.  George  A.  Allison,  chairman  ;  Councilman  Albert  S.  Apsey,  clerk ; 
Alderman  Henry  White,  Councilman  John  J.  Scott,  Messrs.  Edwin  B.  Hale, 
Edgar  R.  Champlin,  James  F.  Aylward,  and  Theodore  H.  Raymond. 

ENTERTAINMENT. 

Alderman  Watson  G.  Cutter,  chairman  ;  Councilman  Charles  H.  Mon- 
tague, clerk  ;  Alderman  Charles  P.  Keith,  Councilmen  Robert  A.  Parry, 
Cornelius  Minihan,  and  Hamilton  H.  Perkins,  Rev.  David  N.  Beach,  Messrs. 
M.  G.  Parker,  William  Goepper,  Joseph  P.  Gibson,  Thomas  F.  Dolan,  John 
D.  Billings,  and  John  H.  Ponce. 

DECORATIONS    AND    ILLUMINATION. 

Alderman  Charles  P.  Keith,  chairman  ;  Councilman  William  F.  Brooks, 
clerk  ;  Councilman  David  W.  Butterfield,  Messrs.  Charles  H.  Saunders, 
John  H.  Corcoran,  Charles  W.  Dailey,  Warren  F.  Spalding,  and  John  E. 
Parry. 

TREE. 

Hon.  Chester  W.  Kingsley,  chairman  ;  Councilman  John  J.  Ahem,  clerk  ; 
Alderman  Clarence  H.  Douglass,  Councilman  Sedley  Chaplin,  Messrs. 
Thomas  W.  Higginson,  Rev.  George  W.  Bicknell,  Rev.  John  O'Brien,  and 
Isaac  S.  Pear. 

FIREWORKS. 

Alderman  Charles  M.  Conant,  chairman  ;  Councilman  Clement  G.  Mor- 
gan, clerk  ;  Councilman  William  R.  Davis,  Messrs.  John  Read,  Edward  B. 
James,  Benjamin  G.  Hazel,  James  M.  Price,  Dr.  James  A.  Dow,  and  David 
T.  Dickinson. 

RECEPTION. 

President  John  R.  Fairbaim,  chairman  ;  Mr.  James  F.  Aylward,  clerk  ; 
President  Jolm  L.  Odiorne,  Messrs.  Charles  H.  Saunders,  William  E. 
Russell,  Edgar  R.  Champlin,  George  Close,  Joseph  J.  Kelley,  Edmund 
Reardon,  George  A.  Allison,  Henry  D.  Yerxa,  John  Hopewell,  Jr.,  and 
James  J.'Myers. 

SALUTE. 

Alderman  Peter  F.  Rourke,  chairman  ;  Councilman  Eben  H.  Googins, 
clerk  ;  Councilman  Melville  C.  Beedle,  Messrs.  John  Read,  Edward  B. 
James,  John  W.  Coveney,  John  T.  Shea,  Charles  W.  Cheney,  and  David 
T.  Dickinson. 

PROCESSION. 

Alderman  Peter  P.  Bleiler,  chairman  ;  Councilman  Walter  C.  Wardwell, 
clerk  ;    Alderman    Marshall  N.  Stearns,   Councilmen  William   R.  Davis, 


408  THE  ANNIVERSARY  COMMITTEES. 

Frank  H.  Willard,  and  Origen  O.  Preble,  Messrs.  Otis  S.  Brown,  John  Read, 
William  B.  Durant,  Rev.  David  N.  Beach,  George  Close,  Leander  M.  Han- 
num,  George  H.  Howard,  John  S.  Clary,  John  D.  Billings,  Edmund  Reardou, 
and  Walter  H.  Lerned. 

INCIDENTALS. 

Mr.  Henry  O.  Houghton,  chairman  ;  Councilman  George  E.  Saunders, 
,clerk  ;  Alderman  Watson  G.  Cutter,  Councilman  Robert  A.  Parry,  Messrs. 
Stillman  F.  Kelley,  and  Henry  D.  Yerxa. 

BANQUET. 

Alderman  Henry  White,  chairman ;  Councilman  Walter  C.  Wardwell, 
clerk  ;  Councilman  Albert  S.  Apsey,  Messrs.  William  B.  Durant,  Charles 
H.  Saunders,  George  H.  Howard,  Isaac  S.  Pear,  and  Otis  S.  Brown. 

The  Mayor  and  Mr.  H.  O.  Houghton,  chairman  of  the  citizens'  com- 
mittee, are  members  ex  officio  of  all  executive  committees. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Abbot,  Ezra,  68. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  excites  the  spirit  of  re- 
search, 74 ;  his  school  for  young  ladies, 
74,  209-211  ;   his  personality,  74. 

Agassiz,  Mrs.  Louis,  plans  her  hushand's 
school,  200;  president  of  Radcliffe 
CoUege,  180. 

Aldermen.  401. 

Allston,  Washington,  41. 

Allston  Street,  fort  at  foot  of,  27. 

Almshouses,  17,  32,  276. 

American  Lodge,  K.  of  P.,  292. 

Amicable  Lodge  of  Masons,  280-28-3. 

Amity  Rebekah  Xiodge,  286. 

Andover,  college  library  and  apparatus 
moved  to,  26. 

Anniversary  committees,  406-408. 

Appleton,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  236 ;  the  Rev- 
olution the  great  event  in  his  ministry, 
237;  church  lands  sold  in  his  time, 
237  ;  gifts  to,  237 ;  salary,  237. 

Arlington,  9. 

Assessors,  402. 

Assets  and  liabilities,  comparative  state- 
ment of,  319. 

Assistants,  Council  of,  5,  23. 

Associated  Charities,  its  beginning,  259 ; 
its  aim,  259 ;  organization,  259 ;  regis- 
trar appointed,  259 ;  visiting,  259 ; 
conferences,  259 ;  the  society  incorpo- 
rated, 260  ;  officers  and  agents,  260  ; 
central  office,  260 ;  woodyard,  260 ;  a 
work  test,  260;  cooperation  needed, 
261 ;  expenses,  261. 

Astronomy  and  astronomers,  75,  76. 

Athenaeum,  the  Cambridge,  228. 

Athenaeum  Press,  The,  337-^9. 

Auditor,  City,  402. 

Avon  Home,  opened  on  Avon  Place,  262 ; 
original  board  of  trustees,  262  ;  name, 
262  ;  endowment,  262 ;  call  for  contri- 
butions, 262  ;  the  house  enlarged,  262  ; 
beginning  of  the  permanent  fund,  263  ; 
new  building  erected  on  Mt.  Auburn 
Street,  263 ;  the  founder's  gift  of  a 
farm,  263  ;  cost  of  maintenance,  26.3 ; 
income,  26-3 ;  inmates,  26-3 ;  matron, 
264 ;  number  cared  for,  264 ;  its  in- 
fluence, 264. 


Banks:  Cambridgeport  National,  302; 
Lechmere,  303 ;  National  City,  303 ; 
Charles  River  National,  304;  First 
National,  305 ;  Cambridge  National, 
307 ;  Cambridge  Safe  Deposit  and 
Trust  Co.,  307 ;  Cambridge  Savings, 
309 ;  Cambridgeport  Savings,  31 1 ; 
North  Avenue  Savings,  311 ;  East 
Cambridge  Savings,  312. 

Baptist  churches,  240. 

Bears  in  Cambridge,  9. 

Beginnings  of  Cambridge,  The,  1-13. 

Belcher,  Andrew,  the  first  innkeeper,  11. 

Belcher,  Jonathan,  royal  governor,  11. 

Berkeley  Street  School,  212. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  Jacob,  73. 

Blue  Anchor  Tavern,  11. 

Borland  House,  28. 

Boston,  preeminence  of,  1 ;  not  intended 
for  seat  of  government,  1 ;  assembling 
of  General  Court  at,  2  ;  means  of  com- 
municating with,  4 ;  troops  stationed 
in,  20 ;  granted  authority  to  improve 
the  river  bank,  106 ;  its  city  council 
opposes  the  construction  of  Harvard 
Bridge,  107 ;  completes  the  Charles- 
bank,  107  ;  no  provision  for  girls  in  its 
early  schools,  189 ;  high  school  opened 
for  girls  in,  192. 

Boston  Massacre,  20. 

Boston  Porcelain  and  Glass  Company, 
30. 

Boston  Port  Bill,  22. 

Boston  Tea-party,  22, 

Bounties  for  wolves,  9. 

"Bower  of  Bliss,  The,"  37. 

Bowers,  Benanuel,  declares  himself  a 
Baptist,  12  ;  fined  and  imprisoned  for 
entertaining  Quakers,  12 ;  turns 
Quaker,  12 ;  sends  verses  to  Thomas 
Danforth,  12 ;  harangues  tlie  people 
in  the  meeting-house,  1.3. 

Bradstreet,  Mrs.,  the  ponderous  verses 
of,  2. 

Bradstreet,  Simon,  site  of  his  house,  2. 

Braintree  Street,  3,  6 ;  name  changed  to 
Harvard,  8. 

Brattle,  General,  notifies  Gage  of  re- 
moval of  powder  from  Charlestown, 


410 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


23 ;  apologizes  to  the  Cambridge  peo- 
ple, 24. 

Brattle,  Rev.  William,  236 ;  his  salary, 
237 ;  donations  to,  237. 

Brattle  Street  (the  Watertown  highway), 
8,  28 ;  Tory  Row  on,  28. 

Brick-making,  387. 

Bridge,  John,  statue  of,  51,  234 ;  its  dedi- 
cation, 51. 

Bridge,  Samuel  J.,  presents  statue  of 
John  Bridge  to  the  city,  51. 

Bridges :  Great  Bridge,  4 ;  West  Boston, 
4,  29,  110,  395 ;  Harvard,  4,  106,  108  ; 
Craigie,  29,  30;  Prison  Point,  29; 
River  Street,  29 ;  Western  Avenue,  29. 

Bridges,  streets  tributary  to,  29. 

Brighton  (Third  Parish,  Little  Cam- 
bridge), 9,  16,  236 ;  annexed  to  Bos- 
ton, 9.     See  Third  Parish. 

Broad  Canal,  30,  31,  109,  110, 127. 

Broadway  (Clark  Road),  37. 

Broadway  Common,  121,  138. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  163,  255. 

Browne  and  Nichols  school  for  boys, 
212-214. 

Bryce,  James,  on  American  municipal 
government,  59. 

Buckingham,  Joseph  Tinker,  219. 

Buckley,  Daniel  A.,  founder  of  the 
Cambridge  News,  222. 

Bunker  Hill,  the  march  to,  49. 

Burial-places,  5,  16 ;  "  without  the  com- 
mon pales,"  133 ;  discontinuance,  133 ; 
the  new  ground  inclosed,  133 ;  graves 
of  eminent  persons,  133 ;  tombs  and 
monuments,  133-136 ;  the  milestone, 
133 ;  monument  to  the  minute-men, 
134;  Dr.  McKenzie's  address  at  its 
consecration,  134;  inscriptions,  135, 
136;  its  renovation,  137;  the  Broad- 
way ground  opened,  137 ;  disuse,  138 ; 
converted  into  a  park,  138.  See  Cam- 
bridge Cemetery,  God's  Acre,  and 
Mount  Auburn. 

Burial-Places  in  Cambridge,  133-141. 

Burgoyne,  General,  quartered  in  the 
Borland  House,  28. 

Cambridge  (see  New  Town),  water  front 
of,  4,  30;  name  given  to  the  New 
Town,  8 ;  grants  of  territory  to,  8 ; 
its  enormous  dimensions,  8;  curtail- 
ments, 8,  9,  14;  annexes  portion  of 
Watertown,  9,  15 ;  acquisitions  from 
Charlestown,  9, 15  ;  lands  bought  from 
Indians,  10 ;  meeting  of  synod  at,  10  ; 
population,  10,  17,  29,  59,  206,  319 ; 
political  activity  in,  18-25 ;  con- 
demns sacking  of  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson's  house,  19  ;  sends 
delegates  to  convention  of  towns,  20 ; 
General  Court  adjourned  to,  20 ;  sym- 
pathizes with  Boston,  21 ;  opposes 
collection  of  duty  on  tea,  21,  22 ;  its 


representatives  act  as  delegates  to 
Provincial  Congress,  24,  25 ;  meetings 
of  Provincial  Congress  at,  25 ;  occu- 
pied by  the  American  army,  26 ;  its 
part  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  26 ; 
and  Bunker  Hill,  26 ;  forts  and  bi-east- 
works,  27 ;  its  citizens  favor  independ- 
ence, 27 ;  rejects  a  constitution 
framed  by  the  General  Court,  27 ;  con- 
stitutional convention  meets  in,  28 ; 
approves  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 
28 ;  ratifies  the  constitution,  28 ;  Bur- 
goyne's  troops  quartered  in,  28 ;  the 
village  in  1780,  29 ;  a  port  of  delivery, 
30 ;  business  depression  caused  by 
the  embargo,  33  ;  petitions  the  Presi- 
dent, 33  ;  schools  in,  33  ;  effect  of 
War  of  1812,  33;  religious  societies 
in,  33 ;  an  element  of  misrule,  38 ; 
social  distinctions,  40  ;  its  three  memo- 
rable days,  53  ;  a  change  in  the  form 
of  its  government  necessary,  55 ;  its 
three  centres,  55  ;  attempts  to  divide 
the  town,  55  ;  "a more  perfect  union " 
determined  on,  55  ;  acceptance  of  the 
charter,  55 ;  comnmnication  between 
the  three  villages,  55 ;  the  sectional 
idea,  55,  56  ;  its  condition  in  1846, 56, 
57 ;  police  department  organized,  56 ; 
end  of  volunteer  fire  companies,  56; 
a  sewer  system  established,  57  ;  early 
expenses,  57 ;  expenses  in  1895,  58, 
59;  its  finances  in  1895,  59;  answer 
to  Mr.  Bryce's  tests,  59 ;  development 
of  the  spirit  of  municipal  unity,  60 ; 
bad  roads  kept  the  villages  apart,  60 ; 
isolation  considered  necessary  by  the 
Old  Villagers,  60 ;  "  one  great  aca- 
demic grove,' '  60 ;  obliteration  of  sec- 
tional lines,  60,  61;  water-supply 
system  and  park  system  unifying 
agencies,  61 ;  its  servants,  62  ;  mayors, 
63  ;  its  attraction  for  literary  men,  67 ; 
its  first  man  of  science,  72  ;  its  reputa- 
tion in  the  scientific  world,  77  ;  its  non- 
partisan government,  78,  79 ;  its  pay- 
as-you-go  policy,  79 ;  free  from  jobs, 
79  ;  retention  of  city  officials  in  office, 
80 ;  machinery  of  government,  80,  81 ; 
the  Rindge  gifts  to,  82-86 ;  its  heri- 
tage, 89,  298;  water-works,  113-118; 
park  system,  119-125 ;  made  a  port 
of  delivery,  126 ;  stimulus  to  real- 
estate  interests  by  the  act,  126 ;  in- 
crease in  valuation,  126 ;  freight 
facilities,  127 ;  improvement  in  mer- 
cantile buildings,  128  ;  high  buildings, 
129 ;  evidences  of  thrift  in,  130 ;  in- 
ducements to  the  stranger,  130;  den- 
sity of  population,  131 ;  healthfulness, 
132  ;  burial-places,  13.3-141 ;  relations 
of  the  university  to,  142-149;  the 
centre  of  growth  in  municipal  health, 
164 ;  its  public  schools,  187-207 ;  his- 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


411 


toric  and  literary  associations,  208; 
newspapers  in,  218-223;  churches  in, 
233-253 ;  charities  of,  259-261,  270 ; 
a  manufacturing  centre,  313 ;  favora- 
ble conditions  for  manufacturing,  313 ; 
its  transportation  facilities,  313  ;  the 
manufacturing  district,  314 ;  its  near- 
ness to  the  labor-market,  315  ;  its  fire 
department,  316 ;  its  police  force,  316 ; 
its  water  supply,  316  ;  valuation,  319  ; 
comparative  statement  of  income  and 
expenditures,  319 ;  manufacturing  sta- 
tistics, 322  -  331 ;  government,  401- 
405 ;  semi-centennial,  list  of  commit- 
tees, 406-408. 

Cambridge  Bank,  301-303. 

Cambridge  Cemetery,  laid  out,  137  ;  con- 
secration, 137 ;  Ur.  Albro's  address, 
137 ;  extent  and  additions,  138 ;  its 
care,  138 ;  chapel,  138 ;  soldiers'  lot, 
138;  interments,  139;  gateway,  139. 

Cambridge  Club,  295. 

Cambridge  Commandery  of  Knights 
Templar,  284. 

Cambridge  Common,  47-52.  See  Com- 
mon. 

Cambridge  Farms  (Lexington),  9,  236. 

Cambridge  Field,  122,  123.  ^ 

"  Cambridge  .Idea,  The,"  87-100 ;  who 
first  used  the  phrase,  87  ;  its  forceful- 
ness,  87  ;  in  everybody's  mouth,  87  ; 
its  indefinableness,  88 ;  a  symposium 

•^  to  define  it,  88 ;  not  an  idea,  but  an 
ideal,  88 ;  a  large  symbol  of  thought, 
88 ;  Cambridge's  heritage,  89,  90 ; 
the  power  of  the  rum  traffic,  91 ; 
licensed  saloons,  91 ;  a  religious  cam- 
paign, 91  ;  "  Frozen  Truth,"  91 ;  over- 
throw of  the  saloon,  91;  a  Law 
Enforcement  Association  organized, 
92  ;  threats  of  the  saloon-keepers,  92 ; 
the  next  election,  92 ;  the  saloon 
beaten,  92 ;  Cambridge  in  the  fore- 
front, 92  ;  her  methods  studied,  93  ; 
her  influence,  93  ;  the  climax,  93  ;  the 
literature  of  the  idea,  94;  vote  on 
the  license  question,  94 ;  result  of  the 
exclusion  of  the  saloon,  94,  95 ;  no 
liquor  licenses  signed  in  the  new  city 
hall,  95  ;  lines  of  division  wiped  out,  ■ 
95 ;  the  highest  result  of  all,  96 ;  the 
methods,  97 ;  relation  to  the  larger 
life  of  Cambridge,  97,  98 ;  a  language 
and  a  watchword,  98,  99 ;  the  task  of 
the  future,  99. 

Cambridge  Improvement  Company,  109. 

Cambridge  Journalism,  218-22.3. 

Cambridge  Light  Infantry  in  War  of 

1812,  33. 
Cambridge  Littoral,  The,  101-112 ;  Blax- 
ton's  outlook,  101 ;  the  first  bridge 
across  the  Charles,  101 ;  the  first 
bridge  to  Boston,  102 ;  the  marshes 
of   the   Charles,    102 ;    the   work  of 


pushing  back  the  sea,  102 ;  the  canals, 
103 ;  effect  of  the  railroad  across  the 
eastern  marshes,  103;  expansion  of 
Boston,  104;  outcome  of  the  work  at 
Boston,  104 ;  first  step  in  the  improve- 
ment of  the  Cambridge  shore,  105; 
extent  of  the  submerged  territory, 
105 ;  scheme  of  development,  106 ; 
Charles  River  Embankment  Com- 
pany, 106, 107 ;  location  of  the  bridge, 
106 ;  first  section  of  retaining-wall 
built,  106 ;  obstruction  in  Boston,  107 ; 
enforcing  act  passed,  107 ;  the  Har- 
vard Bridge,  106, 108 ;  the  Park  Com- 
mission created,  108 ;  waste  areas 
north  of  Main  Street,  108 ;  the  last  of 
the  canals,  108, 109 ;  the  Binney  fields, 
109 ;  Cambridge  Wharf  Company, 
109;  opening  of  First  Street,  110; 
Broad  Canal  bridged,  110;  impor- 
tance of  First  Street,  110;  a  large 
summing  up.  111. 

Cambridge  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows,  286. 

Cambridge  Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Co., 
317. 

Cambridge  National  Bank,  307. 

Cambridge  Parks,  119-125. 

Cambridge  Platform  adopted,  10,  235. 

Cambridgeport,  4  ;  in  1780,  29 ;  deter- 
mines to  have  the  town-house,  31 ; 
almshouse  built  in,  32  ;  its  growth  re- 
tarded by  war  of  1812,  33 ;  tendency 
of  population  to  centre  in,  55 ;  new 
business  blocks  in,  128. 

Cambridgeport  Aqueduct  Company,  113. 

Cambridgeport  National  Bank,  302. 

Cambridge  Port  Private  Grammar 
School,  192. 

Cambridgeport  Savings  Bank,  311. 

Cambridge  Railroad,  396. 

Cambridge  Royal  Arch  Chapter,  284. 

Cambridge  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust 
Co.,  307-309. 

Cambridge  Savings  Bank,  309-311. 

Cambridge  School  for  Girls,  214-217. 

Cambridge  Town,  1750-1846,  14-34. 

Cambridge  Village,  now  Newton,  8. 

Cambridge  Water- Works,  113-118. 

Cambridge  Wharf  Company,  109. 

Canals:  Broad,  30,  31,  109,  110,  127; 
West  Dock,  30;  South  Dock,  30; 
Cross,  30. 

Cannon  on  the  Common,  51,  52. 

Cantabrigia  Club,  296. 

"  Captain's  Island,"  124. 

Car-building,  321. 

Catholics  and  their  Churches,  The,  244. 

Catholic  temperance  and  charitable  so- 
cieties, 252. 

Catholic  Union,  252. 

Cemetery  Commissionera,  404. 

Charities,  259-261,  276. 

Charles  II.,  intended  to  suppress  the 
Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  1. 


412 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Charles  River  Bank,  304. 

Charles  River  embankment,  advantages 
as  a  place  of  residence,  127. 

Charles  River  Embankment  Company, 
106,  107. 

Charles  River  Encampment,  286. 

Charles  River  National  Bank,  304. 

Charles  River  Railroad,  399. 

Charlestown,  1 ;  assembling  of  General 
Court  at,  2 ;  trail  to  Watertown,  3  ; 
General  Gage  removes  powder  from, 
23  ;  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Charlestown  highway  (Kirkland  Street), 
8. 

Cheeshahteaumuck,  Caleb,  the  one  In- 
dian graduate  of  Harvard,  10. 

Cheverus,  Cardinal,  245. 

Christ  Church,  founding  of,  13 ;  its 
chime  of  bells,  13 ;  occupied  by  the 
Continental  Army,  49;  opened  for 
service,  239;  Dr.  Hoppin's  ministry, 
239. 

Churches,  Catholic :  First  record  of 
Catholic  worship  in  the  colony,  244  ; 
School  Street  Chapel,  Boston,  pur- 
chased, 244 ;  early  priests,  245 ;  erec- 
tion of  church  on  Franklin  Street, 
245 ;  Cardinal  Cheverus,  245 ;  Bishop 
Fenwick,  245 ;  Cambridge  part  of  St. 
Mary's  parish,  Charlestown,  246 ; 
Sunday-school  organized  in  East 
Cambridge,  246 ;  land  purchased, 
246;  St.  John's  Church  dedicated, 
247 ;  Wobum  added  to  the  parish, 
247 ;  parish  of  St.  Peter's  Church, 
247, 249 ;  parish  of  St.  Mary's  Church, 
248,  250;  Church  of  the  Sacred 
Heart,  249 ;  parish  of  St.  Paul's,  250 ; 
new  St.  John's  parish,  251 ;  Church 
of  Notre  Dame  de  Piti4,  251 ;  parish 
of  the  Sacred  Heart,  at  Mount 
Auburn,  252. 

Churches,  Protestant : 

Thomas  Hooker's  company  settle  at 
Mount  Wollaston,  234 ;  ordered  to 
come  to  the  New  Town,  234 ;  a  meet- 
ing-house built,  234 ;  ministers,  234 ; 
remove  to  Connecticut,  234 ;  arrival  of 
Thomas  Shepard's  company,  2.34;  a 
new  church  formed,  234 ;  Shepard  in- 
stalled as  its  minister,  2.34 ;  its  organ- 
ization a  notable  event,  234 ;  it  was  a 
Congregational  church,  234  ;  the  first 
meeting-house,  234  ;  influence  of  the 
ministers  on  the  college,  235 ;  the 
Cambridge  Platform  framed,  235 ; 
second  meeting-house  built,  236 ; 
President  Dunster's  heresy,  236; 
ministers,  236 ;  the  third  meeting- 
house, 236 ;  fourth  meeting-house, 
236,  238 ;  church  lands,  237  ;  salaries 
of  the  ministers,  237  ;  how  they  were 
paid,  237 ;  Dr.  Holmes's  pastorate, 
237  ;  a  church  formed  in  the  college, 


238 ;  the  parish  dismiss  Dr.  Holmes, 

238  ;  the  church  goes  out  with  the 
pastor,  238 ;  it  worships  in  the  old 
court-house,  238 ;  meeting-house  on 
Mt.  Auburn  Street  erected,  238 ;  later 
pastors,  238,  239 ;  its  present  house, 

239  ;  Shepard  Congregational  Society 
formed,  239  ;  Second  Congregational 
Church,  241 ;  other  Congregational 
churches,  241. 

First  Parish  and  church  removes  to 
Harvard  Square,  239  ;  ministers,  239 ; 
Second  Parish  formed,  240;  the 
church  becomes  Unitarian,  240 ;  min- 
isters, 240. 

Rev.  East  Apthorp  appointed  mis- 
sionary of   the    Church  of   England, 
239  ;  Christ  Church  opened,  239 ;  Dr. 
Hoppin's  ministry,  239 ;  St.   Peter's 
Church,  240 ;     St.   James's    Cjiurch, 
240 ;  otJier  Episcopal  churches,  240. 
Reformed  Episcopal  Church,  240. 
Methodist  Episcopal  churches,  240. 
Baptist  churches,  240. 
First    Universalist    Church,    241; 
other  Universalist  churches,  24l. 
New  Church  services,  241. 
United  Presbyterian  Church,  241. 
Reformed     Presbyterian     Church, 
241. 

Union  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
241. 

Swedish  services,  241. 
Colored  churches  and  mission,  242. 
Church-members,  suffrage  limited  to,  6. 
Church  property  exempt  from  taxation, 

320. 
Cities  in  Massachusetts,  54. 
Citizens'  Trade   Association,   corporate 
members,  297  ;  object,  297 ;  member- 
ship, 297  ;  its  work,  297  ;  officers,  297. 
City  Hall,  86. 
Clark,  Alvan,  76,  379. 
Clerk,  City,  402. 
Clerk  of  Committees,  402. 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  68. 
Clubs :  Colonial,  294 ;  Newtowne,  295  ; 
Cambridge,     295 ;     Economy,    295 ; 
Cantabrigia,  296. 
College,   the,   General   Court  makes   a 
grant  for,  235 ;  ordered  to  be  placed  in 
the  New  Town,  235 ;  John  Harvard's 
gifts  to,  8;  other  gifts  to,  8  ;  given 
the  name  Harvard,  8  ;  the  yard  boun- 
daries, 8  ;  why  it  was  placed  in  the 
New  Town,  235 ;  meant  to  serve  the 
churches,  2.35  ;  influence  of  the  min- 
isters on  its  life,  235.     See  Harvard 
University. 
Colonial  Club,  294. 

Commencement,   the   great  holiday  of 
the  State,  50 ;  festivities  on  the  Com- 
mon, .50. 
Commercial  Avenue,  315. 


GENERAL  INDEX, 


413 


Conmiittee  of  Correspondence,  appoint- 
ment, 20 ;  work  of ,  21 ;  communicates 
with  the  Boston  committee,  21 ;  to  re- 
lieve their  Boston  brethren,  22. 

Common,  the,  3,  16 ;  an  exciting  epi- 
sode on,  7,  47,  48,  235;  Whitefield 
preaches  on,  13,  48;  an  indignation 
meeting  on,  23,  48 ;  set  apart  by  the 
Proprietors  of  Common  Lands,  47 ; 
title  to,  transferred  to  the  town,  47 ; 
colonial  elections  held  on,  47 ;  the 
Whitefield  tree,  48 ;  assembling-place 
of  the  yeomanry,  48 ;  the  march  from, 
to  Bunker  Hill,  49 ;  the  old  elm,  49 ; 
the  American  army  encamped  on, 
49 ;  Washington  assumes  command 
on,  49 ;  his  visit  to,  in  1789,  50 ;  its 
appearance  on  Commencement  Day, 
50 ;  inclosed  and  beautified,  50 ;  the 
Soldiers'  Monument,  50;  planting  of 
a  centennial  tree,  51 ;  statue  of  John 
Bridge,  52 ;  Memorial  Day  exercises 
on  52  ;  the  cannon  on,  52,  53. 

Common  Council,  401. 

Common  lands,  attempt  to  inclose,  31 ; 
opposition,  31 ;  stormy  town  meetings 
about,  31 ;  appeals,  31. 

Concord  Avenue  improved,  116. 

Concord,  college  instruction  at,  26. 

Confectionery,  manufacture  of,  its  be- 
ginning, 356 ;  amount  invested  in,  358 ; 
number  employed  in,  358  ;  raw  mate- 
rial used  in,  358. 

Congregational  churches,  2.38,  239,  241. 

Congress.     See  Provincial  Congress. 

Constitution,  General  Court  proposes  to 
frame  a,  27;  Cambridge  opposes  the 
movement,  27  ;  submitted  to  the  peo- 
ple, 28 ;  rejected  by  Cambridge,  28. 

Constitutional  convention,  meets  at  Cam- 
bridge, 28. 

Continental  Army  on  Cambridge  Com- 
mon, 49. 

Cooke,  Prof.  J.  P.,  76. 

Correctors  of  the  press,  69. 

Cotton,  John,  6,  7. 

Council  of  Assistants,  5,  23. 

County  buildings,  in  East  Cambridge, 
30 ;  exempt  from  taxation,  320. 

Court-house,  sit«  of,  5 ;  used  as  a  town- 
house,  5 ;  the  new.  16 ;  inadequate 
for  town  meetings,  31. 

Cox,  James,  publisher  of  the  Cambridge 
Press,  221 ;  the  Nestor  of  Cambridge 
journalism,  222. 

Craigie  Bridge,  29,  30. 

Craigie  House  (Longfellow  House),  69. 

Cross  Canal,  30. 

Dame  schools,  189. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  35,  269. 

Dana  Street,  diAriding  line  between  Cam- 

bridgeport  and  Old  Cambridge,  398. 
Danforth,  Samuel,  appointed  mandamus 


councilor,     23 ;    determines    not    to 
serve,  23. 

Danforth,  Thomas,  deputy-governor,  11 ; 
Benanuel  Bowers's  verses  to,  12. 

Davenport,  Charles,  ear-builder,  321. 

Daye,  Stephen,  sets  up  the  first  printing- 
press,  8 ;  works  printed  by,  8 ;  an  em- 
ployee of  President  Dunster,  333 ;  not 
a  successful  printer,  333 ;  becomes  a 
real-estate  agent,  333. 

Death-rate,  131,  132. 

Debt  of  the  city,  59,  319,  320. 
j  Declaration  of  rights,  approved,  28. 
I  Delta,  etc.,  37. 

Deputies,  House  of,  established,  5. 

Dexter,  D.  Gilbert,  founder  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Tribune,  222. 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  contrasts  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  with  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land, 60. 

Dodge,  Col.  Theodore  A.,  describes  an 
important  industry,  366-370;  on  the 
advantages  of  Cambridge,  370. 

Dorchester,  1 ;  exodus  from,  6. 

Dowse  Institute  Fund,  320. 

Dowse,  Thomas,  library  of,  41. 

Dudley,  Thomas,  site  of  his  house,  2. 

Dunster,  Henry,  president  of  Harvard 
College,  12,  332 ;  denounces  infant 
baptism,  12,  236 ;  and  Edward  Goffe, 
build  the  first  schoolhouse,  188;  re- 
moves from  Cambridge,  236;  burial 
there,  236 ;  error  in  marking  his  grave, 
236 ;  secures  possession  of  the  first 
printing-press,  332 ;  sued  for  its  re- 
covery, 332 ;  a  second  press  falls  into 
his  hands,  3.32 ;  his  political  influence, 
332. 

Dunster  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows,  286. 

Earthquake  of  1755,  73. 

East  Cambridge,  4,  29,  33 ;  secures  the 
county  buildings,  30;  improvements 
in,  128. 

East  Cambridge  Land  Company,  109, 
314. 

East  Cambridge  Savings  Bank,  312. 

East  End  Christian  Union,  beginnings 
of,  275 ;  incorporation,  275  ;  its  build- 
ing, 275  ;  superintendent,  275 ;  gym- 
nasium, etc.,  275  ;  relation  to  the 
Associated  Charities,  275  ;  reading- 
room  and  library,  275 ;  visitors,  275 ; 
the  Triangle  Club,  275 ;  officers,  275. 

Economy  Club,  295. 

Editors,  famous,  220. 

Educational  facilities  and  their  relation 
to  manufactures,  315. 

Election,  an  exciting,  7,  47.  48,  235. 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  president  of  Harvard 
University,  chapter  by,  142. 

Eliot,  Rev.  John,  first  sermon  of,  to  the 
Indians,  10. 

Endicott,  John,  governor,  2. 


414 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Engineer,  City,  404. 

Episcopal  churches,  239,  240. 

Episcopal  Theolog-ical  School,  buildings, 
254;  its  founder,  254;  his  purpose, 
255 ;  trustees,  255 ;  iiis  work,  255 ; 
benefactors,  256 ;  deans,  256  ;  profes- 
sors, 256 ;  graduates,  256 ;  property  ex- 
empt from  taxation,  320. 

Everett,  Edward,  describes  a  common 
town  school,  191. 

Fall  River  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Farms,  4,  41. 

Farrar,  Professor,  73. 

Fav,  Isaac,  makes'  a  bequest  for  a  hos- 
pital, 278. 

Fay  House,  183,  184. 

Ferry,  4. 

Fire  Department,  316. 

Fire  Department,  Board  of  Engineers 
of,  404. 

Fire  engine,  the  first,  17 ;  Henry  Vas- 
sall's,  18. 

First  Church,  233,  234. 

First  National  Bank,  305-307. 

First  Parish,  opposes  a  new  parish  south 
of  the  Charles,  15  ;  petitions  for  a  stripi 
of  land  from  Watertown,  15 ;  petition 
granted,  15 ;  wants  a  strip  from 
Charlestown,  15 ;  the  strip  annexed,, 
15 ;  but  does  not  become  part  of  Cam- 
bridge, 15 ;  triumph  of  the  separatists 
south  of  the  Charles,  16;  called  the 
body  of  the  town,  16;  terminates  its 
contract  with  Dr.  Holmes,  31,  238 ; 
majority  of  the  parish  Unitarians,  31  ; 
Dr.  Holmes  and  his  followers  with- 
draw from,  31 ;  erects  a  new  building, 
32,  239. 

First  Parish  meeting-house,  location,  5  ; 
second  house,  5 ;  a  fourth  house 
erected,  17 ;  the  college  contribution, 
17 ;  Washington  attends  service  in,  17  ; 
constitutional  convention  held  in,  17 ; 
Lafayette  received  in,  17 ;  college  ex- 
ercises in,  17  ;  used  for  town  meetings, 
31 ;  the  fifth  house  built,  32  ;  the  col- 
lege bears  a  portion  of  the  expense, 
32 ;  retains  rights  in  it,  32.  See 
Churches,  Protestant. 

First  Street,  opened,  110;  its  impor- 
tance, 110. 

Fitting  -  Schools  for  boys  and  girls, 
217. 

Folsom,  Charles  V.,  69,  336,  337. 

Freemasonry,  beginning  of  history  in 
Cambridge,  280;  its  importance  in 
Revolutionary  days,  280 ;  association 
first  known  as  Aurora  Society,  280; 
meetings  at  Hovey's  Tavern,  280; 
signers  to  the  original  call,  280 ;  first 
meeting,  280 ;  by-laws,  280 ;  officers, 
281 ;  petition  for  a  charter,  281 ;  name 
Aurora    unsatisfactory,    281;     name 


Amicable  adopted,  281 ;  new  members 
admitted,  281 ;  consecration  of  the 
lodge,  281 ;  lodge  rooms,  281 ;  steady 
growth,  281 ;  anti-Masonic  excitement, 
282  ;  the  organization  dissolved,  282  ; 
the  Masonic  Charity  Fund  offered  the 
city,  282  ;  the  offer  not  accepted,,  283  ; 
the  charter  restored,  283 ;  the  first 
meeting,  283 ;  meeting-places,  283 ; 
semi-centennial,  283 ;  seventy-fifth 
anniversary,  283 ;  present  number  of 
members,  283  ;  other  Masonic  organi- 
zations, 284. 

Freight  facilities,  127. 

Fresh  Pond,  113,  114,  116,  117. 

Fresh  Pond  Park,  117,  125. 

Friendship  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows,  286o 

Frozen  Truth,  91,  94. 

Gage,  General,  seizes  powder  in  Charles- 
town,  23,  48 ;  and  fieldpieces  in  Cam- 
bridge, 23,  48. 

Gallows  Lot,  executionston,  5,  12. 

Gambrel-Roofed  House,  The,  43-46. 

Gardner,  Col.  Thomas,  killed  at  Bunker 
Hill,  26. 

General  Court,  places  of  assembling,  2 ; 
how  formed,  5 ;  adjourned  from  Bos- 
ton to  Cambridge,  20 ;  proposes  to 
frame  a  constitution,  27. 

Gibbs,  Dr.  Wolcott,  77. 

Gilman,  Arthur,  his  plan  for  the  col- 
legiate instruction  of  women,  177, 178 ; 
Regent  of  Radcliffe  College,  174; 
opens  the  Cambridge  School  for  Girls, 
214 ;  secretary  of  the  Humane  Society, 
270. 

Girls,  excluded  from  early  schools,  189, 
190. 

God's  Acre,  5,  16,  134. 

GofiFe,  Edward,  and  President  Dunster, 
build  the  first  schoolhouse,  188. 

Goffe,  WiUiam,  11. 

Gookin,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  236. 

Government,  municipal,  on  what  it  de- 
pends, 78  ;  elimination  of  partisanship 
in,  78  ;  non-partisanship  in.Cambridge,, 
78,  79 ;  machinery  of,  in  Cambridge, 
80. 

Government,  of'  the  City  of  Cambridge, 
401-405. 

Graded  schools  introduced  by  Cam- 
bridge, 33. 

Grand  Army  in  Cambridge :  WUliam 
H.  Smart  Post  30  ;  Charles  Beck  Post 
56 ;  P.  Stearns  Davis  Post  57 ;  John 
A.  Logan  Post  186,  287. 

Grand  Junction  RaUroad,  314. 

Gray,  Dr.  Asa,  73;  his  works  and  his 
trees,  74. 

Green,  James  D.,  first,  mayor  of  Cam- 
bridge, 62. 

Greene,  Samuel,  old-time  printer,  333, 
336 ;  works  printed  by,  336. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


415 


Harbor  Master,  404. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  founded,  6. 

Harvard,  name  given  to  the  college  at 
the  New  Town,  8.  See  College  and 
Harvard  University. 

Harvard  Annex.     See  RadclifFe  College. 

Harvard  Bank,  .30.5,  306. 

Harvard  Branch  of  the  Fitchburg  Bail- 
road,  396. 

Harvard  Bridge,  4,  106,  108. 

Harvard  HaU,  "burning  of,  17,  18 ; 
General  Court  meets  in,  20. 

Harvard,  Rev.  John,  8. 

Harvard  Square,  formerly  part  of  the 
Common,  16,  23 ;  the  town  centre, 
16 ;  ceases  to  be  the  centre,  31 ; 
sketch  of,  in  1822,  35,  36. 

Harvard  Street,  formerly  Braintree,  8 ; 
called  Craig^e  Road,  37. 

Harvard  University  (see  College),  area 
of  lands,  142 ;  purchases  and  sales, 
142,  143  ;  its  open  spaces  a  benefit, 
144,  145  ;  the  University  population, 
145  ;  makes  permanent  residents, 
145  ;  collections  open  to  the  public, 
145, 146 ;  lectures,  146 ;  concerts,  146 ; 
chapel  services,  146  ;  effect  on  the 
public  schools,  146 ;  on  the  printing 
establishments,  147  ;  business  of 
boarding  and  lodging,  147 ;  private 
dormitories,  147  ;  business  dependent 
on,  147 ;  effect  on  Cambridge  as  a 
place  of  residence,  147-149 ;  a  type 
of  its  life,  149  ;  summer  pilgrims  to,. 
149 ;  its  origin,  history,  and  purpose, 
1.50  ;  what  it  includes,  151 ;  courses 
of  instruction,  151  ;  the  College,  151  ; 
framework  of  a  student's  career,  152  ; 
Lawrence  Scientific  School,  1.52,  15.3  ; 
Graduate  School,  153,  154 ;  Divinity 
School,  1.54 ;  Law  School,  1.54,  155  ; 
Medical  School,  156 ;  Dental  School, 
156,  157 ;  School  of  Veterinary  Med- 
icine, 157  ;  Bussey  Institution,  157  ; 
Summer  School,  157,  1-58  ;  Athletic 
buildings,  158  ;  laboratories  and  mu- 
seums, 158  ;  religious  life,  158  ;  capi- 
tal, investments,  and  income,  159  ;  its 
spirit,  159;  "Harvard  indifference," 
160  ;  its  motto,  160  ;  religious  life  at. 
thirty  years  ago,  161  ;  development 
of  the  new  religious  life,  162,  163 ; 
preachers  to  the  University,  163  ; 
practical  results,  163 ;  physical  train- 
ing at,  16.5-170 ;  Lady  Ann  Moulson 
establishes  its  first  scholarship,  174  ; 
property  exempt  from  taxation.  320. 

Harvard  University  in  its  Relations  to 
the  City,  142-149. 

Harvard  Washington  Corps,  37. 

Hayward,  Almira  L.,  232. 

Health,  Board  of,  132,  402. 

Health  of  Cambridge,  The,  131,  132. 

Health,  the  first  board  of,  271. 


Henry  Highland  Gamett  Division,  K. 
of  P.,  292. 

Heresy,  dread  of,  10. 

Hews,  Abraham,  entries  in  his  journal 
April  19,  1775,  382. 

Higginson,  Stephen,  35,  36. 

High  buildings,  129. 

Hill,  Dr.  G.  B.,  author  of  "  Harvard 
College  by  an  Oxonian,"  72. 

Holmes,  John,  Ballade  by,  vi ;  35,  183. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  33. 

Holmes,  Rev.  Abiel,  dismissed  from  the 
First  Parish,  31,  238 ;  his  farm,  41 ; 
importance  of  his  pastorate,  337 ;  his 
ministrations  in  the  '*  Port,"  240 ; 
foimds  the  Humane  Society,  267. 

Hooker,  Rev.  Thomas,  arrives  at  New 
Town,  6  ;  his  company  not  satisfied, 
6 ;  they  remove  to  Connecticut,  6, 
233  ;  and  found  Hartford,  6. 

Horton,  Elizabeth,  12. 

Hospital,  Cambridge,  opened  by  Miss 
K  E.  Parsons,  278 ;  incorporated, 
278 ;  closed,  278 ;  Isaac  Fay's  bequest, 
278  ;  additional  gifts,  278  ;  extent  of 
hospital  inclosure,  278  ;  surroundings, 
278 ;  buildings,  279  ;  the  hospital 
opened,  279  ;  number  cared  for,  279 ; 
its  accommodations,  279  ;  cost  of  land 
and  buildings,  279  ;  cost  of  mainte- 
nance, 279  ;  property  exempt  from 
taxation,  .320. 

Houghton,  H.  O.,  tells  the  story  of  the 
fii-st  printing-press,  332,  333 ;  334 ; 
founder  of  the  Riverside  Press,  335. 

House  of  Deputies  established,  5. 

Ho  wells,  W.  D.,  letter  from,  iv. 

Humane  Society,  Cambridge,  when 
founded,  267  ;  preliminary  meetings, 
267  ;  objects,  267-269 ;  list  of  arti- 
cles procured,  267  ;  beneficiaries,  267- 
269  ;  first  officers,  268  ;  address,  268, 
269  ;  some  early  members,  269  ;  offi- 
cers, 269,  270 ;  its  work,  270 ;  life- 
saving  apparatus,  270,  271 ;  the 
original  board  of  health,  271  ;  its 
operations  extended,  272  ;  its  bathing- 
house,  272-273 ;  'members,  273 ;  pres- 
idents, 273,  274. 

Huron  Avenue,  116. 

Hutchinson,  Anne,  controversy  over  her 
religious  teachings,  7,  235 ;  her  opin- 
ions condemned,  7,  235  ;  sentenced  to 
banishment,  7. 

kidians.  Mystic,  9,  10 ;  their  squaw 
sachem,  9,  10 ;  Cambridge  land 
bought  of  them,  9,  10  ;  friendly  rela- 
tions with  the  whites,  10  ;  put 
themselves  under  the  protection  of 
the  English,  10 ;  Eliot's  first  sermon 
to,  10 ;  number  professing  Christian- 
ity, 10 ;  Harvard's  one  Indian  gradu- 
ate, 10 ;  in  King  Philip's  War,  10. 


416 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Jail  in  East  Cambridge,  30. 
Jail  on  Winthrop  Street,  5,  16. 
Jefferson  Physical  Laboratory,  72. 
John  A.  Logan  Post,  290. 
Johnson,  Edward,  quoted,  2,  235. 
Journalists  and  editors,  219-223. 

Kendall,  Joshua,  school  for  boys,  211, 
212. 

Kindergartens,  206,  217. 

Kingsley,  Chester  W.,  118  n.,  120. 

Knights  of  Pythias :  St.  Omar  Lodge, 
292  ;  American  Lodge,  292  ;  Uniform 
Rank  Gamett  Division,  292  ;  Henry 
Highland  Garnett  Lodge,  292. 

Knox,  General,  51. 

Labor-market,  315. 

Lake  View  Avenue,  116. 

Langdon,  President,  prayer  of,  49. 

Law  Enforcement  Association,  92. 

Lawrence  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Lechmere  Bank,  .303. 

Lechmere  Point  Corporation,  30 ;  erects 
county  buildings  at  East  Cambridge, 
30. 

Lee,  Joseph,  appointed  mandamus  coun- 
cilor, 23 ;  determines  not  to  serve,  23. 

Lexington,  formerly  Cambridge  Farms, 
9 ;  church  formed  at,  23. 

Library.     See  Public  Library. 

Life  in  Cambridge  Town,  35-42. 

Literary  Life  in  Cambridge,  67-71. 

Little  Cambridge,  9.  See  Third  Parish 
and  Brighton. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  69,  70. 

Longfellow  Garden,  the,  69. 

Longfellow  Memorial  Association,  prop- 
erty exempt  from  taxation,  320. 

Lovering,  Professor,  76. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  35,  37 ;  his  playful  plaint, 
60,  09 ;  what  he  would  rather  see,  70 ; 
a  singer  of  good  politics,  90 ;  his  de- 
scription of  Fresh  Pond  meadows, 
125. 

Lowell,  high  school  in,  192. 

Lowlands,  reclamation  of,.  106, 107, 109, 
111,  127. 

Lynn  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Mandamus  councilors,  23. 

Manson,  Elizabeth,  kindergarten,  217. 

Manual  Training  School  for  Boys,  its 
building,  85,  86,  224,  225 ;  object  of 
its  founders,  224;  opening  of  the 
school,  225 ;  supervising  committee, 
225 ;  its  reputation,  225  ;  an  indispen- 
sable factor  in  the  school  system,  225 ; 
equipment,  225 ;  its  scope,  226 ;  not  a 
trade  school,  226 ;  prepares  for  scien- 
tific or  higher  technical  schools,  220  ; 
stimulating  influences,  226  ;  fire  drill, 
227 ;  military  drill,  227 ;  the  band, 
227 ;  the  glee  club,  227. 


Manufactures,  for  year  ending  April  1, 
1845,  322 ;  June  1,  1855,  323  ;  May  1, 
1865,  324  ;  May  1,  1875,  325 ;  during 
year  1890,  328 ;  general  statistics  for 
year  ending  June  30,  1885,  331. 

Manufacturing,  Cambridge  a  centre  for, 
313  ;  favorable  conditions  for,  313  ; 
land  available  for,  313,  314 ;  trans- 
portation facilities,  313 ;  labor-mar- 
ket, 315  ;  relation  of  park  system  to, 
313  ;  fire  protection,  316 ;  police  pro- 
tection, 316 ;  table  of  comparative 
water  rates  for,  318 ;  product  of  manu- 
factures, 322  ;  statistics,  322-331.  See 
Index  to  Manufactures. 

Manufacturing  establishments  June  30, 
1885,  327. 

Market  House,  36. 

Markham,  Jeannette,  school  for  g^ls, 
217. 

Marshes,  110. 

Masonic  organizations.  See  Freema- 
sonry. 

Massachusetts  Avenue  (Concord  Road), 
37. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  Company  of,  trans- 
ference of  its  charter  a  popular  move- 
ment, 1 ;  its  first  settlements,  1 ;  seeks 
a  seat  of  government,  1 ;  what  gov- 
erned its  choice,  1  ;  the  enemy  most 
to  be  feared,  1 ;  Charles  I.  intended 
its  suppression,  1 ;  erects  New  Town 
for  a  seat  of  government,  2. 

Massachusetts,  cities  in,  541. 

Mather,  Cotton,  commends  Mr.  Shep- 
ard's  "  vigilancy,' '  7. 

Mattabeseck  (Middletown),  Conn.,  7. 

Mayor,  401. 

Mayors,  list  of,  63. 

Medford,  removes  its  powder  from 
Charlestown,  23. 

Meeting-house,  the  first,  5,  234. 

Memorial  Day  exercises  on  the  Com- 
mon. 51. 

Memorial  Hall,  site  of,  36,  37. 

Menotomy,  becomes  the  Second  Parish 
of  Cambridge,  9,  14,  236. 

Menotomy  Road  (Massachusetts  Ave- 
nue), 133. 

Methodist  churches,  240. 

Middlesex  Bank,  303. 

Middletown,  Conn.,  settled,  7. 

Milestone  in  Harvard  Square,  1.34. 

Milk,  Inspector  of,  405. 

Minute-men,  monument  to,  135. 

Mitchel,  Rev.  Jonathan,  235. 

Mizpah  Lodge  of  Masons,  284. 

Monti  Luigi,  the  "Young  Sicilian," 
211. 

Morse,  Royal,  auctioneer,  40. 

"Morse's  hourly,"  38. 

Moulson,  Lady  Ann,  establishes  scholar- 
ship at  Harvard,  174;  Radcliffe  Col- 
lege named  for,  175. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


417 


Moulson,  Sir  Thomas,  174. 

Mount  Auburn,  location,  i;39  ;  known  as 
"Stone's  Woods,"  189;  also  Sweet 
Auburn,  139 ;  proprietors,  139 ;  use  as 
a  cemetery  authorized,  139 ;  the 
tower,  139 ;  first  committee  for  the 
cemetery,  139, 140 ;  consecration,  140 ; 
incorporation,  140 ;  first  burials,  140 ; 
the  chapel,  140 ;  statues,  140, 141 ;  the 
Sphinx,  140;  gateway,  140;  monu- 
ments, 140,  141 ;  eminent  dead,  141 ; 
Franklin  monument,  141 ;  interments, 
141 ;  funds,  141  ;  other  lands  of  the 
corporation,  141. 

Mount  Auburn  Corporation,  140. 

Mount  Auburn  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows, 
186. 

Mount  Auburn  Street,  "the  back  roa<l 
to  Mount  Auburn,"  37. 

Mount  Olivet  Lodge  of  Masons,  284. 

Mount  Sinai  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows,  286. 

Mulford,  Elisha,  68. 

Municipal  government.  See  Grovem- 
ment. 

National  City  Bank,  303. 

Neck,  the,  4,  127. 

New  Bedford  becomes  a  city,  54 ;  high 
school  in,  192. 

New  Cambridge,  9. 

Newburyport  becomes  a  city,  54. 

New-Church  Theological  School,  37 
location,  257 ;  chapel  services,  257 
curriculum,  258 ;  teachers,  258 
management,  258 ;  students,  258 
property  exempt  from  taxation,  320. 

New  England  Encampment,  286. 

New  England  Glass  Company,  33. 

New  England  Lodge  of  Odd  Fellows, 
286. 

New  Jerusalem  Church,  241. 

Newspapers :  New  England  Chronicle 
and  Gazette,  218 ;  Chronicle,  221 ; 
Press,  221 ;  Tribune,  222 ;  News,  222; 
Crimson,  223 ;  Lampoon,  223 ;  Advo- 
cate, 223 ;  Harvard  Graduates'  Mag- 
azine, 223 ;  Sacred  Heart  Review, 
223. 

Newton,  formerly  Cambridge  Village 
and  New  Cambridge,  8,  9 ;  set  off 
from  Cambridge,  236;  First  Church 
organized,  236. 

New   Town,    erection  of,   2 ;  form,   2 
intended  for  seat  of  government,  2 
intention    gradually    abandoned,    2 
assembling  of  General   Court  at,  2 
bounds,  2  ;  streets,  2,  3  ;  defenses,  3 
"too  far  from  the  sea,"  3;  neat  and 
compact,  3  ;  inhabitants,  3  ;  the  com- 
mon grazing-land,  3 ;  house-lots  and 
homesteads,  3  ;  its  "  West  End,"  3  ; 
building  restrictions,  3  ;  the  "  Neck," 
4 ;  farms,  4  ;  its  threefold   pai-tition, 
4 ;  communications  with   Boston,  4 ; 


first  meeting-house,  5 ;  palisade,  5,  8, 
133 ;  accessions  to  the  popvdation, 
6  ;  Thomas  Hooker's  company  leave 
for  Connecticut,  6 ;  the  town  nearly 
depopulated,  6 ;  arrival  of  Thomas 
Shepard  and  his  congregation,  7 ; 
election  on  the  Common,  7,  47,  48, 
235 ;  Mrs.  Hutchinson  sentenced  at, 
7 ;  the  college  placed  in,  8 ;  name 
changed  to  Cambridge,  8.  See  Cam- 
bridge. 

Newtown.     See  Newton. 

Newtowne  Club,  295. 

No-license  vote,  its  effect  upon  the  city, 
316, 

Nonantum,  John  Eliot  preaches  to  the 
Indians  at,  10 ;  within  Cambridge 
limits,  10. 

North  Avenue  Savings  Bank,  311. 

North  Cambridge,  improvements  in,  128. 

Norton,  Rev.  John,  criticism  of  Mrs. 
Bradstreet's  verses,  2. 

Oakes,  Rev.  Urian,  minister,  acting- 
president,  and  president  of  the  col- 
lege, 236. 

Observatory,  75,  76. 

Odd-Fellowship,  its  position,  285 ; 
strength  and  popularity,  285 ;  first 
founded  in  England,  285 ;  first  Amer- 
ican lodge,  285 ;  its  purpose,  285 ;  its 
motto  and  aim,  285 ;  its  work,  285 ; 
Cambridge  organizations,  286 ;  build- 
ings, 286. 

Old  Cambridge,  2.     See  New  Town. 

Oldest  Cambridge,  2.     See  New  Town. 

Old-time  Society,  An,  267-274. 

Old  Villagers,  60. 

Olive  Branch  Rebekah  Lodge,  286. 

Oliver,  Thomas,  lieutenant-governor, 
23  ;  his  promise  to  Cambridge  citizens, 
24. 

Ossoli,  Margaret  Fuller,  35. 

Overseers  of  the  Poor,  403. 

Owen,  John,  51. 

Paige,  Rev.  Lucius  R.,  276,  281,  284. 

Palisade  at  the  New  Town,  5,  8,  133 ; 
Watertown  refuses  to  share  the  ex- 
pense of  building,  8;  needed  as  a 
protection  from  wild  beasts,  8. 

Park  Commissioners,  403. 

Parks,  committee  to  consider  the  subject 
of,  120;  public  grounds  in  1892,  120; 
their  inadequacy,  120 ;  Park  Com- 
missioners appointed,  120 ;  the  begin- 
nings of  their  work,  120 ;  Broadway 
Common,  121  ;  the  East  Cambridge 
.embankment,  122  ;  Cambridge  Field, 
122  ;  Rindge  Field,  123 ;  four  miles 
of  river  parkway,  123 ;  the  basin  of 
the  Charles,  123 ;  "Captain's  Island," 
124 ;  views  from  the  river  parkway, 
124 ;  Fresh  Pond  Park,  125 ;  Lowell's 


418 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


description  of  the  Fresh  Pond  mead- 
ows, 125. 

Parsonage,  the,  10. 

Parson's  allowance  in  1680,  10. 

Parsons,  Emily  E.,  277. 

Peabody,  Rev.  A.  P.,  102. 

Peirce,  Prof.  Benjamin,  remark  of,  70. 

Physical  training,  104,  165  ;  Harvard's 
first  attempt,  105-167 ;  Kay's  private 
gymnasium,  167 ;  recreative  games, 
167 ;  boat  races,  107  ;  first  game  of 
baseball,  108 ;  Hemenway  Gymna- 
sium, 108  ;  Harvard  Athletic  Associ- 
ation established,  108  ;  football,  108  ; 
the  old-style  gymnasium,  108,  109  ; 
the  new  apparatus,  109 ;  physical  ex- 
aminations, 169  ;  Harvard  Athletic 
Committee,  170  ;  Y.  M.  C.  A.  gymna- 
sium, 171 ;  Cambridgeport  gymna- 
sium, 171 ;  growth  of  interest  in  phy- 
sical development  in  the  United 
States,  171 ;  students  of  physical 
training  at  Harvard,  172  ;  influence 
on  the  youth  of  Cambridge,  172, 173  ; 
the  college  offers  the  use  of  its 
grounds  to  the  city,  173. 

Pine  Swamp  Field,  4. 

"  Pointers,"  00. 

Police  Department,  405. 

Police  force,  316. 

Ponema  Tribe,  Red  Men,  293. 

Poor's  House,  the,  17,  276. 

Population,  in  1680,  10;  in  1750,  17; 
in  1765,  17;  in  1776,  17,  29;  in  1790, 
32 ;  in  1810, 32 ;  in  1840,  32  ;  in  1850, 
32 ;  in  1895,  59 ;  comparative  state- 
ment of,  319. 

Population,  density  of,  131. 

Port  Bill,  22. 

"  Port  chucks,"  38. 

"Porters,"  60. 

Porter's  Tavern,  37. 

Prescott,  Col.  William,  49. 

Printing-press,  the  first,  8 ;  productions 
of,  8. 

Prison  Point  Bridge,  29. 

Private  Schools  in  Cambridge,  208-217. 

Professors'  Row  (Kirkland  Sti-eet),  36, 
37,  41. 

Prospect  Union,  object,  265 ;  name,  265 ; 
begins  work  in  the  Prospect  House, 
205  ;  leaders,  265  ;  outgrows  its  quar- 
ters, 2()5 ;  occupies  the  old  City  Hall, 
265  ;  classes,  205,  266 ;  teachers,  266 ; 
the  University's  interest  in  the  Union, 
266 ;  weekly  meetings,  260 ;  lectures, 
266 ;  not  a  charitable  institution,  266 ; 
members'  fees,  266  ;  non  -  sectarian, 
266 ;  spirit,  266 ;  privileges  of  mem- 
bers, 266 ;  its  value  to  the  city,  316. 

Protestant  Churches  of  Cambridge,  The, 
233-243. 

Provincial  Congress,  organized  at  Salem. 
25  ;  adjourns  to  Concord,  25 ;  then  to 


Cambridge,  25;  appoints  a  receiver- 
general,  25;  second,  meets  at  Cam- 
bridge, 25. 

P.  Stearns  Davis  Post,  57,  290. 

Public  Buildings,  Superintendent  of,  and 
Inspector  of  Buildings,  404. 

Public  Library,  The,  228-232 ;  its  origin 
in  the  Cambridge  Athenaeum,  228 ; 
bequest  of  James  Brown  for  the 
purchase  of  books,  228 ;  the  library 
opened,  228  ;  Athenaeum  building  be- 
comes the  property  of  the  city,  228 ; 
which  agrees  to  maintain  the  library, 
228 ;  receives  the  name  of  the  Dana 
Library,  228  ;  Mr.  Dana's  bequest  lost, 
228 ;  made  free,  228 ;  name  changed 
to  Cambridge  Public  Library,  228 ; 
number  of  volumes,  228 ;  Mr.  Rindge's 
gift,  228;  the  library  building,  228, 
229 ;  general  reading-room,  229  ;  chil- 
dren's room,  229  ;  local  deliveries, 
229  ;  Cambridgeport  branch,  229 ; 
school  delivery,  229,  230 ;  total  yearly 
circulation,  230  ;  visitors,  230 ;  month- 
ly bulletin,  230 ;  special  reading-lists, 
230 ;  Cambridge  Memorial  Room,  230, 
231 ;  manuscript  rarities,  231  ;  Thirty- 
eighth  Regiment  flag,  231 ;  gifts  from 
Cambridge  people,  231 ;  Miss  Hay- 
ward's  work,  232. 

Public  Library  building,  83,  84,  228, 
229. 

Public  Schools  of  Cambridge,  The,  187- 
208. 

Putnam  Lodge  of  Masons,  284. 

Quakers  in  Cambridge,  12,  13. 
Quineboquin  (the  crooked)  River,  123. 

Radcliffe  College,  why  so  named,  174, 
1 75 ;  established  by  the  legislature, 
175 ;  Dr.  Stearns's  idea  of  a  college 
for  women  in  Cambridge,  175 ;  origin 
of  Radcliffe,  170 ;  first  plan  for  the 
collegiate  instruction  of  women,  170  ; 
a  house  chosen,  177;  Mr.  Oilman  un- 
folds his  plan  to  President  Eliot,  177, 
178  ;  Professor  Greenough's  reception 
of  the  scheme,  178:  President  Eliot 
willing  the  experiment  should  be  tried, 
178 ;  the  "  committee,"  1 78 ;  Harvard 
professors  approve  the  scheme,  179; 
the  first  announcement,  179 ;  the  ex- 
aminations, 180;  work  begun,  180; 
educational  privileges  for  women,  180 ; 
the  line  of  progress,  181 ;  intellectual 
character  of  the  students,  181,  182 ; 
certificates,  182 ;  the  secretary,  182 ; 
the  quarters  prove  too  small,  1 83 ; 
enlargement,  183 ;  a  guardian  angel, 
183 ;  a  builcUng  becomes  a  necessity, 
183 ;  Miss  Fay  offers  her  homestead, 
183  ;  Fay  House  purchased,  183  ;  The 
Society  for  the  Collegiate  Instruction 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


419 


of  Women  incorporated,  184  ;  its 
nickname,  184;  enlargement  of  Fay 
Hoase,  184 ;  incorporation  of  Radcliff  e 
College,  184 ;  growth  of  the  work, 
185 ;  its  union  with  Harvard,  186  ; 
property  exempt  from  taxation,  320. 

Railways,  street,  395-3(>9. 

Real  estate  owned  by  the  city,  59. 

Real-Estate  Interests  of  Cambridge, 
126-130. 

Red  Men,  Improved  Order  of,  293. 

Reed,  Benjamin  T.,  founds  the  Epis- 
copal Theological  School,  2.>4,  255. 

Reemie,  Marcus,  barber  shop  of,  viii,  35. 

Reformed  Presbyterian  Church,  241. 

Regicide  judges,  their  life  in  Cambridge, 
U- 

Reid,  Andrew,  founder  of  tlie  Cam- 
bridge Chronicle,  221. 

Reidesel,  General,  quartered  in  the  Sew- 
all  House,  28. 

Reidesel,  Madame,  describes  life  in  Torv 
Row,  28. 

Religious  societies,  33. 

Rindge  Field,  123. 

Rindge,  Frederick  H.,  83-86,  196,  224, 
227,  228. 

Rindge  Gifts,  the,  82-86. 

Riverside  Press,  The,  32  ;  founded  by 
H.  O.  Houghton,  33.5. 

River  Street  Bridge,  29. 

Roxbury  becomes  a  city,  54. 

St.  Giles's  church,  Edinburgh,  tumult 
in,  1. 

St.  Omer  Lodge,  K.  of  P.,  292. 

Saloons,  exclusion  of,  92 ;  effect  of  their 
exclusion  on  the  population  of  the 
city,  94 ;  on  the  treasury,  95  ;  on  the 
savings  banks,  95,  .316 ;  on  the  busi- 
ness of  the  city,  95,  316 ;  on  real  es- 
tate, 128. 

Sanders  Temperance  Fund,  277,  320. 

Savings  Banks.     See  Banks. 

Savings  Banks,  increase  of  deposits  in, 
95,  316. 

School  Committee,  402. 

Schoolhouse,  the  first  permanent,  10; 
site,  10  ;  built  by  President  Dunster 
and  Edward  Goffe,  188. 

Schoolmaster's  salary  in  1680,  10. 

Schools  in  1800,  33 ;  in  1845,  33. 

Schools,  graded,  33. 

Schools,  private :  Professor  Agassiz's, 
209-211 ;  Joshua  Kendall's,  211,  212 ; 
Berkeley  Street  School,  212  ;  Browne 
and  Nichols.  212-214 ;  Cambridge 
School  for  Girls,  214-217;  Fitting- 
School  for  Boys  and  Girls,  217. 

Schools,  public  : 

Elijah  Corlett's  "  faire  Grammar 
Schoole,"'  187 ;  his  reputation  as  a 
teacher,  188 ;  his  first  schoolhouse, 
188 ;  Indian  youths  fitting  for  college. 


188 ;  the  Court  orders  towns  to  appoint 
teachers,  188 ;  how  teachers'  salaries 
were  paid,  188  ;  Mr.  Corlett's  meagre 
fees,  188  ;  the  town  comes  to  the  res- 
cue, 188;  votes  him  an  annual  sal- 
ary, 188 ;  grants  from  the  General 
Court,  188 ;  early  grammar  school  a 
college  fitting-school,  188,  189 ;  for 
boys  exclusively,  189 ;  no  formal  pro- 
vision for  girls,  189;  fashionable  to 
ridicule  female  learning,  190 ;  how 
girls  worked  their  way  into  the  public 
schools,  190 ;  successors  to  Corlett's 
schoolhouse,  liX);  transformation  of 
the  colonial  grammar  school,  191 ; 
Edward  Everett's  description  of  a 
common  town  school.  191 ;  a  g^m- 
mar  school  in  a  double  sense,  191 ; 
'■  children "  comes  to  includes  both 
sexes,  191 ;  co-education  in  Massachu- 
setts, 192 ;  the  sexes  separated,  192 ;  the 
Auburn  Female  High  School,  193; 
the  girls  fare  better  than  the  boys, 
193;  schools  made  for  both  sexes, 
193 ;  Auburn  High  and  Grammar 
School,  193 ;  high  and  grammar 
school  classes  part  company,  193 ;  the 
tablet  in  the  wall  of  the  Washington 
building,  194;  high  school  organized 
in  Cambridgeport,  194 ;  its  first 
teacher,  194 ;  not  favored  in  Old 
Cambridge,  194 ;  Otis  schoolhouse  in 
East  Cambridge,  194 ;  teachers,  194 ; 
teachers  of  Female  High  School,  194 ; 
high  school  for  the  city  opened,  195 ; 
teachers,  195 ;  Old  Cambridge  oppo- 
sition, 195 ;  Old  Cambridge  high 
school  closed,  195 ;  beginning  of  the 
Cambridge  High  School,  195  ;  its  new 
biiilding,  195;  popularity,  195;  a 
third  home,  195 ;  the  high  school  di- 
^aded,  195 ;  the  Latin  School,  196 ; 
English  High  School  building,  196; 
Manual  Training  School,  196 ;  a  new 
building  for  the  Latin  School,  196 ;  a 
decade  of  unparalleled  high  school 
development,  196 ;  Mr.  Rindge's  gifts, 
196. 

Fifty  years  ago,  fruit  of,  197 ;  ex- 
hibitions, 197 ;  corporal  punishment 
diminishing,  197 ;  reading,  197 ;  ir- 
regular attendance,  198 ;  school  libra- 
ries, 198 ;  committee  visits,  198 ;  popu- 
larity of  Cambridge  schools,  198; 
grades,  198  ;  cost  of  instruction,  198 ; 
spelling,  198,  199 ;  protest  against 
many  studies,  199 ;  need  of  good 
teachers,  199 ;  schools  too  large,  199 ; 
schoolhouses,  199,  200 ;  excuses,  200 ; 
bad  behavior,  200 ;  progress,  201, 202. 

Schools  of  to-day :  committee,  202 ; 
superintendents,  202  ;  high  school  .sys- 
tem, 203 ;  head  masters  and  teachers, 
203;  a  wider  range  of  choice,  203; 


420 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


grammar  schools,  203,  204 ;  training- 
school  for  teachers,  204;  plan  for 
shortening  grammar  school  courses, 
205 ;  special  teachers,  205,  206 ; 
geometry  and  physics,  205  ;  primary 
schools,  205 ;  superintendents,  205  ; 
kindergartens,  206 ;  evening  schools, 
206;  truant  officers,  206;  statistics, 
1845  and  1895, 206 ;  comparisons,  207  ; 
further  educational  advantages,  207. 

Scientific  Cambridge,  72-77. 

Scientific  School,  75,  76 ;  instructors,  75. 

Second  Parish,  incorporated  as  West 
Cambridge,  9,  16. 

Sewall  or  Lechmere  House,  28. 

Sewall,  Jonathan,  liis  windows  broken 
by  Cambridge  citizens,  23. 

Sewers,  Superintendent  of,  404. 

Shays' s  Rebellion,  32. 

Shepard,  Rev.  Thomas,  arrival  at  New 
Town,  7, 233 ;  his  "  vigilancy  "  against 
heresies,  7 ;  his  ministry,  7,  235 ;  his 
presence  determines  the  seating  of 
the  college,  235. 

Shepard  Congregational  Society,  organ- 
ized, 31,  239. 

Simond's  Hill,  37. 

Sinking  Funds,  Commissioners  of  the, 
403. 

Social  Union,  property  exempt  from 
taxation,  320. 

Society  for  the  Collegiate  Instruction  of 
Women.     See  Radcliffe  College. 

Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel in  Foreign  Parts,  sends  missionary 
to  Cambridge,  240. 

Soldiers'  Monument,  50. 

Solicitor,  City,  404. 

Somerville  Powder  House,  23. 

South  Dock  Canal,  30. 

Springfield  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Squire,  John  P.,  371,  373. 

Stage  lines  to  Boston,  395,  396. 

Stamp  Act,  19. 

Stearns,  Rev.  William  A.,  his  idea  of  a 
college  for  women,  175  ;  on  co-educa- 
tion, 193. 

Stony  Brook,  113,  114. 

Story,  W.  W.,  35,  37. 

Street  improvements,  128. 

Street  railways,  39.5-399. 

Streets,  Superintendent  of,  404. 

Streets  tributary  to  bridges,  29. 

Students,  moral  improvement  in,  39,  40. 

Students,  Southern,  38,  39. 

Suffrage,  limited  to  church-members,  6. 

Sweet  Auburn,  139.  See  Mount  Au- 
burn. 

Taxation,  property  exempt  from,  .320. 
Taxation  without  representation,  early 

case  of,  5. 
Tax  rate,  59. 
Tea,  duty  on,  21,  22. 


Tea,  destruction  of,  22. 

Third  Parish,  called  Little  Cambridge, 
9 ;  attempts  to  establish,  14,  15 ;  op- 
position, 14, 15  ;  compromises,  15  ;  new 
petition  and  counter-petition,  1 6 ;  the 
precinct  incorporated,  10  ;  a  church 
founded,  16  ;  incorporated  as  the  town 
of  Brighton,  16.     See  Brighton. 

Thompson,  Benjamin  (Count  Rumford), 
73. 

Toll  bridges,  29. 

Tory  Row,  28. 

Town,  body  of,  16. 

"  Town  boys  "  and  "  Wells  boys,"  38. 

Town  church.    See  First  Parish. 

Town-house,  location,  31. 

Town,  traces  of  English  method  of  form- 
ing, in  Cambridge,  4. 

Travel  between  Boston  and  Cambridge, 
400. 

Treadwell,  Prof.  Daniel,  73. 

Treasurer,  City,  402. 

Trowbridge,  Prof.  John,  77. 

Trustees  of  Cambridge  Public  Library, 
403. 

Uniform  Rank  Gamett  Division,  K.  of 
P.,  292. 

Union  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  241. 

Union  Railway  Company,  incorporated, 
396 ;  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard  and  his  as- 
sociates, .396  ;  first  meeting  of  stock- 
holders, 396, 397 ;  officers  elected,  397 ; 
efforts  to  procure  subscriptions,  397 ; 
cars  procured,  397  ;  a  successful  run, 
397 ;  fares,  398 ;  hack  to  call  for  pas- 
sengers, 398 ;  removal  of  snow  from 
Boston  streets,  398 ;  passes,  398,  399 ; 
absorbed  in  West  End  system,  399. 

Unitarian  churches,  239,  240. 

United  Presbyterian  Church,  241. 

Universalist  churches,  241. 

University  Press,  The,  10 ;  history  of, 
336,  337. 

Valuation  from  1886  to  1895,  319. 

Valuation,  increase  in,  126. 

Value  of  buildings,  stock,  and  machin- 
ery. May  1,  1875,  326, 

Vane,  Governor  Harry,  7  ;  at  election  on 
Cambridge  Common,  47;  his  defeat, 
48;  sails  for  England,  48;  youngest 
person  ever  elected  governor,  48  ;  tried 
for  high  treason  and  beheaded,  48. 

Vassall,  Henry,  offers  his  fire  engine  to 
the  town,  18. 

Vassall  House  (Craigie  House,  Longfel- 
low House),  27. 

Volunteer  fire  department,  55,  56. 

Voters,  Registrars  of,  404. 

Ward,  General,  headquarters,  26,  49. 

Washington  Elm,  49. 

Washington,  General,  headquarters,  26, 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


421 


27 ;  assumes  command  of  the  Conti- 
nental Army,  49,  50 ;  his  last  tour 
through  New  England,  50 ;  reception 
on  the  Common,  50 ;  worships  in  the 
First  Parish  meeting-house,  238. 

Watchhouse  Hill,  second  meeting-house 
biiilt  on,  23(5. 

Water  Board,  118,  403. 

Water  front,  4,  30. 

Water  rates  to  manufacturers,  -318. 

Water  supply,  316. 

Watertown,  inconvenient  situation  of, 
1 ;  trail  from,  to  Charlestown,  o ;  re- 
fuses to  be  taxed  for  the  New  Town 
palisade,  5 ;  portion  of,  annexed  to 
Cambridge,  9,  15. 

Water  -  Works,  Cambridge,  chartered, 
113;  authorized  to  take  the  water  of 
Fresh  Pond,  113 ;  buys  out  the  Aque- 
duct Company,  113 ;  becomes  the  prop- 
erty of  the  city ;  sources  of  supply, 
113,  114;  Stony  Brook  and  its  tribu- 
taries, 114;  stora^-e  basins,  114;  dis- 
tributing reservoir  at  Payson  Park, 
114;  objections  to  municipal  control, 
114 ;  its  financial  standing,  115 ;  a  help 
to  the  poor,  1 15  ;  street  improvements 
by,  116,  117 ;  surroundings  of  Fresh 
Pond,  117. 

Weights  and  Measures,  Sealer  of,  405. 

West  Boston  Bridge,  29,  495. 

West  Cambridge,  9,  16. 

West  Dock  Canal,  30. 

"West  End,"  3. 

Western  Avenue  Bridge,  29. 

•'  West  Field,"  4. 

Wethersfield,  Conn.,  founded,  6. 

Whalley,  the  regicide,  11. 


Wharton,  Francis,  68. 

White,  Daniel,  Charity,  277,  320. 

Whitefield,  George,  preaches  on  the 
Common,  13,  48  ;  a  friend  to  the  col- 
lege, 236. 

Whitefield  tree,  48. 

Willard,  Emery,  the  village  strong  man, 
40. 

William  H.  Smart  Post  30,  288, 

Williams,  Rev.  Mr.,  73. 

Willson,  Forceji;he,  68. 

Wilson,  John,  Sr.,  334. 

Wilson,  Rev.  John,  election  speech  of, 
7  48. 

Windm'ui  Hill,  3. 

Windsor,  Conn.,  founded,  6. 

Winloek,  Professor,  75. 

Winship,  Mra.  Joanna,  tomb  of,  189. 

Winthrop,  John,  1,  2,  7,  47. 

Winthrop,  Prof.  John,  72,  73. 

Winthrop  Square,  5. 

Wires,  Inspectors  of,  and  Superintend- 
ent of  Lamps,  404. 

Witchcraft,  11,  12. 

Wollaston,  Mount,  Thomas  Hooker's 
company  settle  at,  6,  233. 

Wolves,  bounties  for,  9. 

Worcester  becomes  a  city,  54. 

Worcester,  Joseph  E.,  lexicographer,  68. 

Worthington  Street,  ll6. 

Wright,  Elizur,  description  of  London 
parks,  119. 

Wyman,  Prof.  Jeffries,  73,  75. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  242 ; 

property  exempt  from  taxation,  320. 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association, 

242. 


INDEX   TO  MANUFACTURES. 


Barrels. 

Goepper  Brothers,  392. 
Bicycle  Tires. 

Boston  Woven  Hose  and  Rubber  Co. , 
366. 
Bluing. 

David  W.  Davis,  395. 
Boilers. 

William  Campbell  &  Co.,  355. 

Edward  Kendall  &  Sons,  345. 

Rawson  &   Morrison  Manufacturing 
Co.,  348. 

Riverside  Boiler  Works,  352. 

Roberts  Iron  Works  Co.,  355. 
Bookbinding. 

J.  H.  H.  McNamee,  341. 

Riverside  Bindery,  383. 

!dOX6S* 

Carlos  L.  Page  &  Co.,  393. 

George  G.  Page  Box  Co.,  384. 
Boxes,  Paper. 

Charles  Place,  391. 
Brass  Work. 

Bay  State  Metal  Works,  352. 

Standard  Brass  Co.,  352. 
Brick. 

Bay  State  Brick  Co.,  388. 

N.  M.  Cofran  &  Co.,  388. 

D.  Warren  De  Rosay,  388. 

Edward  A.  Foster,  388. 

Parry  Brothers,  386. 

M.  W.  Sands,  388. 
Bridges  and  Building  Frames. 

Boston  Bridge  Works,  349. 
Brushes. 

A.  &  E.  Burton  &  Co.,  394. 

F.  M.  Eaton,  394. 

Carriages. 

Cambridge  Carriage  Co.,  364. 
Chapman  Carriage  Co.,  363. 
H.  Fletcher  &  Co.,  364. 
Henderson  Brothers,  362. 
George  R.  Henderson,  364. 
J.  A.  Henderson,  364. 
Francis  Ivers  &  Son,  362. 
Andrew  J.  Jones,  363. 
Nelson  Carriage  Co.,  363. 
Hugh  Stewart  &  Co.,  363. 


Stewart  Brothers,  364. 

Charies  Waugh  &  Co.,  363. 
Cement. 

W.  F.  Webster  Cement  Co.,  395. 
Chemists. 

Henry  Thayer  &  Co.,  392. 
Collai-s  and  Cuffs. 

Reversible  Collar  Co.,  375. 
Confectionery. 

Bay  State  Confectionery  Co.,  357. 

B.  P.  Clark  &  Co.,  356. 

George  Close,  357. 

D.  M.  Hazen  &  Co.,  357. 

Jensen  Brothers,  358. 

R.  H.  Leach,  358. 

H.  F.  Sparrow,  357. 
Corn  Brooms. 

F.  M.  Eaton  &  Co.,  394. 
Crackers. 

New  York  Biscuit  Co.,  378. 

Diaries. 

The  Cambridgeport  Diary  Co.,  339- 
341. 
Dye-Stuffs  and  Chemicals. 

Jerome  Marble  &  Co.,  394. 

Farming  Tools. 

Breed  Weeder  Co.,  395. 
Feather  Dusters. 

A.  &  E.  Burton  &  Co.,  394. 
Fertilizers. 

John  C.  Dow  &  Co.,  394. 
Furniture. 

W.  H.  C.  Badger  &  Co.,  365. 

A.  H.  Davenport,  366. 

Ericson,  G.  F.,  366. 

A.  M.  &  D.  W.  Grant,  366. 

Graves  &  Phelps,  366. 

Irving  &  Casson,  365. 

Keeler&Co.,364. 

Otis  Woodworks,  366. 

P.  A.  Pederson,  366. 

Lee  L.  Powers,  366. 

William  W.  Robertson,  366. 

Rourke  &  Kennedy,  366. 

A.  B.  &  E.  L.  Shaw,  365. 

D.  C.  Storr  Furniture  Co.,  366. 

T.  B.  Wentworth,  366. 


INDEX   TO  MANUFACTURES. 


423 


Electric  Heating. 

American  Electric  Heating  Corpora- 
tion, 351. 
Electric  Hoists. 

Walter  W.  Field,  355. 
Electric  Lighting  and  Power. 

Cambridge  Electric  Light  Co.,  873. 
Electric  Wires  and  Cables. 

Simplex  Electrical  Co.,  351. 
Engineering,  Mechanical. 

E.  D.  Leavitt,  356. 
Expanded  Metal  Work. 

Eastern  Expanded  Metal  Co.,  351. 

Foundry. 

Broadway  Iron  Foundry  Co.,  350. 

Gas  Lighting. 

Cambridge  Gas  Light  Co.,  380. 
Glass. 

P.  J.  McElroy  &  Co.,  393. 

Hats. 

David  Wilcox  &  Co.,  393. 
Hoisting-Engines. 

Walter  W.  Field,  355. 

^liller  &  Shaw,  355. 
Hydraulic  Hose. 

Boston  Woven  Hose  and  Rubber  Co., 
366. 

Ladders  and  Chairs. 

C.  H.  W.  Moulton  &  Co.,  394. 
Lubricants. 

Hall  Brothers,  351. 

Machinery. 

Barbour,  Stoekwell  Co.,  .346. 

HaU  Brothers,  351. 

Miller  &  Shaw,  355. 

Rawson   &   Morrison  Manufacturing 
Co.,  :i48. 

James  H.  Roberts  &  Co.,  355. 
Mats  and  Matting. 

James  A.  Furfey,  395. 
Mill  and  Laundry  Supplies. 

Alden  Speare's  Sons  &  Co.,  382. 

Netting. 

American  Net  and  Twine  Co.,  377. 

Oils. 

Jerome  Marble  &  Co.,  394. 

Alden  Speare's  Sons  &  Co.,  382. 
Organs,  Parlor. 

Mason  &  Hamlin  Co.,  .342. 

Sylvester  Tower,  .344. 
Organs,  Pipe. 

Samuel  S.  Hamill,  342. 

Paper,  Enameled  and  Glazed. 

Reversible  Collar  Co.,  375. 
Pavements. 

Barber  Asphalt  Paving  Co.,  395. 


Pianos. 

Ivers  &  Pond  Piano  Co.,  343. 

Mason  &  Hamlin  Co.,  342. 
Piano  Actions. 

George  W.  Seavems  Piano  Action  Co., 
343. 

Standard  Action  Co.,  344. 
Piano  Cases. 

George  R.  Oliver,  344. 
PHano  Hammer  Covers. 

Daniel  E.  Frasier,  344. 
Piano  Keys. 

Sylvester  Tower,  344. 
Piano  Stools  and  Taborets. 

C.  A.  Cook  &  Co.,  344. 
Pipe,  Galvanized  Lron. 

Lamb  &  Ritchie,  352. 
Plate  Iron  Work. 

William  Campbell  &  Co.,  355. 
Pork  Packing. 

John  P.  Squire  &  Co.,  371-373. 
Pottery. 

A.  H.  Hews  &  Co.,  382. 
Printing,  Book. 

The  Athenseum  Press,  337-339. 

The  Riverside  Press,  334-336. 

The  University  Press,  336,  337. 
Printing,  Book  and  Job. 

Cambridge  Cooperative  Society,  341. 

The  College  Press,  341. 

J.  Frank  Facey,  341. 

Graves  &  Henry,  341. 

Harvard  Printing  Co.,  341. 

Lewis  J.  Hewitt,  341. 

Jennings  &  Welch,  341. 

F.  L.  Lamkin  &  Co.,  341. 

G.  B.  Lenfest,  341. 
Lombard  &  Caustic,  .341. 
PoweU  &  Co.,  341. 

C.  H.  Taylor  &  Co.,  341. 

Louis  F.  Weston,  341. 

Edward  W.  Wheeler,  341. 
Publishing. 

Ginn  &  Co.,  .337-339. 

Houghton,  Mi£Bin  &  Co.,  334-336. 
Pumps. 

Geo.    F.   Blake   Manufacturing   Co., 

oOo. 

Rubber  Goods. 

American  Rubber  Co.,  381. 

Shoe  Blacking  and  Metal  Polish. 

W.  W.  Reid  Manufacturing  Co.,  395. 
Soap. 

Carr  Brothers,  362. 

Curtis  Davis  &  Co.,  .3.58. 

James  C.  Davis  &  Co.,  359. 

C.  L.  Jones  &  Co.,  361. 

Lysander  Kemp  &  Sons,  360. 

Charles  R.  Teele,  362. 
Spring-Beds. 

Howe  Spring-Bed  Co..  .393. 

New  England  Spring-Bed  Co.,  392. 


424 


INDEX   TO  MANUFACTURES. 


Stone  Work. 

WiUiam  A.  Bertsch,  389. 

Charles  Kiver  Stone  Co.,  389. 

Connecticut  Steam  Stone  Co. ,  389. 

Austin  Ford  &  Son,  389. 

A.  Higgins  &  Co.,  389. 

John  J.  Horgan,  389. 

Alexander  McDonald  &  Sod,  3S8. 

K.  J.  Rutherford,  389. 

Union   Marble   and  Granite    Works, 
389. 
Sugar. 

Revere  Sugar  Refinery,  394. 

Telescopes. 

Alvan  Clark  &  Sons,  379. 
Tin  Cans. 

Charles  E.  Pierce  &  Co.,  393. 


Tinware. 

Dover  Stamping  Co.,  389. 

Seavey  Manufacturing  Co.,  390. 
Turning. 

Standard  Turning  Works,  390. 
Twine. 

American  Net  and  Twine  Co.,  377. 

Undertakers'  Supplies. 

WiUiam  L.  Lockhart  &  Co.,  390. 

Vinegar. 

Cambridge  Vinegar  Co.,  395. 

Waterproofed  Clothing. 

H.  M.  Sawyer  &  Son,  391. 
Wire  Work. 

Morss  &  Whyte,  351. 


1888 


A     000  672  406     6 


